Sunday, June 22, 2025
Yeehaw Another War
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Biographical Sketch Written for ACM SIGGRAPH
1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?
Its very nice of you to ask. Whatever it is I do now is different from what I did then. The world was a different place and it is hard to explain. No one thought that computer animation would be useful for much. There were some of us who felt compelled to show that it was useful in various diverse ways. Some of these true believers had to sneak around and publish ideas and hope their management never found out. Some of us postponed graduate school or took a cut in pay or otherwise did career damaging things that seem irresponsible in retrospect.
So I did some of those things. I wrote an animation system (primarily a renderer) for a leading production company. That software, to everyone’s surprise, turned out to be the prototype for a system that got used by 500 studios worldwide and won me a Science and Technology award from the Motion Picture Academy. Then I helped friends produce a short animated film that featured behavioral animation as a way of supporting my friend Craig Reynolds who was publishing on that topic that year. After that, being unemployed, I got into business with my friend Brad deGraf, starting out in his garage, and that was pretty crazy. We ended up hiring everyone we knew and helped produce a real time character for SIGGRAPH with one of the earliest SGI workstations and then did a bunch of other productions for theme parks and feature films back before CG was used for that.
The point is that whatever my role may have been in those underfinanced exercises in idealism, they didn't pay well nor did they lead to normal employment. It was fun but not very practical. Now, everyone does this stuff and for many years I have been looking for things to do that might be valued in society, like money laundering or destabilizing governments. While I wait to win the lottery, I try to keep busy by making pictures with computers and teaching a class now and then.
2. What was your first job?
My first real job was with the RAND Corporation. They put me on one of those well-meaning social research projects from the 1970s. They paid my way back to school and let me work with some amazing people and gave me access to their facilities.
3. Where did you complete your formal education?
I have degrees from UCLA.
4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?
Suzy Landa of RAND hosted the Los Angeles chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH in a conference room there. This was perhaps 1976 or 1977. That is where I met Larry Cuba, John Whitney Jr, Gary Demos, Richard Hollander, Art Durinsky, Craig Reynolds, Doug Kay, George Joblove, Bill Kovacs, Jim Blinn, Pat Cole and others. My management at RAND insisted that I attend at least one academic conference per year and so I suggested the national SIGGRAPH Conference.
5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?
Most of the national conferences took place for me in a haze of sleep deprivation and fear.
At the conference in 1980 I went to hear a talk by someone named Dr. Ed Catmull on the topic of what he had learned running a CG lab at the New York Institute of Technology. I went up to introduce myself afterwards and he spent about an hour talking to me about what he wanted to do next which was to make feature length, narrative-driven, animated films with computers. At the time, very few people thought that would be possible. Ed and friends went on to found PIXAR.
The technical reception was small enough that you could meet people. Three of the young people there in what might have been 1981 carried a notebook with test pictures. They had just graduated from college. They were Carl Rosendahl, Richard Chuang, and Glenn Entis, the founders of Pacific Data Images.
I sat next to Larry Cuba when his film “Calculated Movements” premiered at the Electronic Theatre.
Trey Stokes, Brad deGraf and I performed the synthetic opera in real time at the Electronic Theatre of 1988.
6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.
Just want to say hi and thank anyone who helped out who I might have forgotten to thank at the time.
7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?
I wonder what restaurant and who is picking up the check? Will someone provide a translator to come to dinner with us in the case that our guest does not speak modern English? A few names come to mind as potential candidates. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Oscar Wilde, Eric Blair, Evelyn Waugh, Napoleon Bonaparte, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Georges Danton, Maimonides, Hugues de Payens, Malcolm X, the Marquis de Lafayette, Karl Marx, Oleg son of Rurik, Crazy Horse of the Lakota, Richard Henry Lee of the Virginia Continental Congress, Charles Darwin, Dr. John von Neumann, Kandinsky, Man Ray and others. Maybe we should have a dinner party?
8. What is something most people don’t know about you?
I don't think I should talk about that.
9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?
The great American author Louis L’Amour, in an airline magazine, once said that you should never tell your age. There is too much ageism in America.
Willis Ware of the RAND Corporation showed me a 16 mm film shot off the screen by someone named Ivan Sutherland. It was part of his thesis project, I think, about something called Sketchpad.
10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?
My parole officer
11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?
Pride is a sin
V 2 5/7/2025
Monday, June 9, 2025
Cantamus
In examining software for text to song, I came across Cantamus.app. I know very little about it beyond their demo and that they are located in Barcelona. If you get a chance, please listen to their demo, especially from 00:39 forward.
Saturday, May 31, 2025
The Democrats Failed Again
I would have thought that after Schumer failed to hold up the Trump budget that the Democrats would be on their best behavior. I was wrong.
Apparently the Republicans in the House passed their fascist budget by 1 vote. But the Democrats had lost three votes because some old members had refused to retire in time to be replaced but died in office.
OK, this disqualifies them from leadership.
AOC and Booker should form a new party.
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Administrative Note 5/30/2025
As you know, I dont actually know who reads my blog. I am getting bored with all the politics.
Thursday, May 15, 2025
For R&D Using Machine Learning Now is the Time
Monday, May 12, 2025
Walls and Constitutions
Sunday, May 11, 2025
The Good News About US Science
Thursday, May 1, 2025
An Interesting Discussion with a Trump Supporter
Special Thanks to my Fellow Americans
Exactly as predicted, Trump and friends are attempting to destroy American democracy and doing a good job of it. Apparently all that self-serving rot about checks & balances was all "just kidding". In the history of the world, short of a major war, there has rarely been a national decline so precipitous and self-inflicted.
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Let Us Embrace National Decline
Monday, April 28, 2025
Modified Coconut Chip Cookies
Monday, April 21, 2025
The Various Failures of the Democratic Party
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Budgets and the Supreme Court
The appalling effort to destroy American democracy continues at full speed. There are so many outrages it is hard to know where to begin. Lets start with the destruction of various departments in the executive branch.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Research in Visual Effects Practice & Technology
Sunday, March 30, 2025
AI and the Judaic Concept of the Soul
I asked the free version of Perplexity's AI if Judaism has the concept of a soul. Here is what it said:
Yes, Judaism has a well-developed concept of the soul, which is central to its understanding of human existence and spirituality. The soul in Jewish thought is multifaceted and has evolved over time, influenced by biblical texts, rabbinic teachings, and mystical traditions.
Key Concepts of the Soul in Judaism:
Terminology and Structure:
The Hebrew terms for the soul include nefesh (associated with physical life), ruach (spirit or emotional life), and neshamah (the higher, divine aspect). In Kabbalistic thought, additional levels are recognized: chayah (life force) and yechidah (essence or unity with God)[1][2][3].
These levels represent a ladder-like connection between the physical and spiritual realms, with the nefesh being closest to the body and the neshamah closest to God[1][3].
Creation and Divine Connection:
The soul is described as originating from God’s breath, as seen in Genesis: “And G d breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7)[3].
According to rabbinic tradition, all souls were created during the six days of Creation and are stored until they are assigned to a body at birth[2][4].
The Relationship Between Body and Soul:
Afterlife and Immortality:
Moral Responsibility:
The soul is seen as responsible for moral discernment and spiritual development. It navigates between inclinations toward good (yetzer tov) and evil (yetzer hara’)[5].
In summary, Judaism’s concept of the soul encompasses its divine origin, multifaceted nature, partnership with the body, moral responsibilities, and its journey beyond physical life. These ideas reflect a blend of biblical teachings, rabbinic interpretations, and mystical insights.
⁂
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3194/jewish/What-Is-a-Soul-Neshamah.htm
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-spirituality-and-the-soul/
https://www.dorsheitzedek.org/divrei-torah/rabbi-toba-spitzer?post_id=934460
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Pictures from Tesla Showroom in Santa Monica
Saturday, March 15, 2025
No Longer a Democrat
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Speech by Malhuret Before the French Senate
Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers, My dear colleagues,
Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.
Washington has become the court of Nero, a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fueled jester in charge of purging the civil service.
This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.
The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is all about. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down before Putin, but Xi Jinping, faced with such a shipwreck, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.
Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media.
This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution.
I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor.
Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign.
Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised. What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it.
And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.
The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it.
What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.
Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada, you are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe, he is Taiwan and the China Sea.
At the parties of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, this is called “diplomatic realism.”
So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated.
Interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse show that it is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war.
The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands and that they have three imperatives.
This will be expensive. It will be necessary to end the taboo of the use of frozen Russian assets. It will be necessary to circumvent Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself by a coalition of only the willing countries, with of course the United Kingdom.
Second, demand that any agreement be accompanied by the return of kidnapped children, prisoners and absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia and Minsk, we know what agreements with Putin are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion.
Finally, and this is the most urgent, because it is what will take the most time, we must build the neglected European defence, to the benefit of the American umbrella since 1945 and scuttled since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is to recognize that France has been right for decades in arguing for strategic autonomy.
It remains to be built. It will be necessary to invest massively, to strengthen the European Defence Fund outside the Maastricht debt criteria, to harmonize weapons and munitions systems, to accelerate the entry into the Union of Ukraine, which is today the leading European army, to rethink the place and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, to relaunch the anti-missile shield and satellite programs.
The plan announced yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen is a very good starting point. And much more will be needed.
Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. In a word, the Draghi report will have to be implemented. For good.
But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament.
We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left.
They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly, Mr Prime Minister, before you, against European unity, against European defence.
They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin.
Peace for the collaborators who have refused any aid to the Ukrainians for three years.
Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react.
Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.
The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and social networks.
But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads.
The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for their common defense, and to make Europe the power that it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again.
Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost.
The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century.
Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.
Monday, March 10, 2025
John Galt 1948-2025
https://ottawacitizen.remembering.ca/obituary/john-galt-1092739989
Some other time I will discuss the wacky project we did with SONY and Disney and HDTV. Somehow and for some reason I got a trip to Disney's studio tour in Florida a month before it opened. John and I travelled together.
I am glad I took the opportunity to contact John perhaps 6-9 months ago to apologize for something that happened long ago when I lost my mind. Do not fail to sleep for months on end, I note to myself, as you do not always present your best side.
Let this also be a lesson to those who may read this post: if you have something to say to someone, say it now, even if they appear healthy, you never know. I am happy I reached out to John when I did.
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Why Hasnt Elon Musk Been Sanctioned by Tesla?
Why hasn't Elon Musk been sanctioned by his shareholders?
"If a CEO is found to have intentionally destroyed shareholder value, they could face legal action from shareholders through a shareholder derivative lawsuit, potentially leading to personal liability, fines, or even removal from their position. The board of directors is responsible for overseeing the CEO's actions and can take steps to remove them if they believe the CEO is not acting in the best interests of the shareholders." according to Google.
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Preferred Smashed Chocolate Cookies
¾ cup chocolate chips
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup unsalted butter (if salted dont add so much salt)
2 tbsp ground flaxseed
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
¾ cup/90 all-purpose flour
1 Espresso or strong coffee
Taken and modified from the NY Times at:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1025868-chewy-brownie-cookies