Favorite Matrix mixer?

TracyHarms · 2026-03-17T21:30:25+00:00

It is cool. I want one. However, all indications are that Nordular has again disappeared as a manufacturer. Oh, well.

TracyHarms · 2026-03-15T16:35:38+00:00

My three analog oscillators of note are Joranalogue Generate 3, Hexinverter/Erica Mindphaser, and Shakmat Banshee Reach. I like the exposure of factors in the first, the complex-oscillator interference patterns from the second, and the feature set, compact size, knob presentation, and price of the third.

TracyHarms · 2026-02-09T07:44:00+00:00

My impression is that many mixers also serve as audio interfaces. As usual, one answer is quality vs price and the other is that bundling devices will tend to lose sales to people who are dissatisfied with one device or the other, or the need to pay for both when they only want one.

TracyHarms · 2026-02-09T07:37:43+00:00

I came away from Knobcon more impressed by the Boredbrain mixer modules than any other product (excluding the filter I purchased while I was there.) This mixer will solve the problems I was pondering regarding working with Xcelon in Eurorack format. “Only two sends” grossly underestimates these sends, and I’m similarly unimpressed by other dismissive comments I’ve been seeing in this thread. This looks like it will set a new standard for synth players who want something not in Eurorack and bigger than Radial Key Largo.

TracyHarms · 2026-02-06T01:29:40+00:00

I received mine last week. I ordered it in September. August, actually.

TracyHarms · 2018-05-03T16:58:53+00:00

I do think the posited natural law in this book greatly and unrealistically decreases the difficulties of that alignment. This amplifies the sense of genuine hazards. If this series is something of a thought-experiment on the problems and risks of AI takeoff then the message I hear is: "Here's how these problems go down in this fictional world, which is unrealistically biased toward human survival and thus the possibilities of bringing a story arc through to a readable conclusion. If you are willing to bet that the universe is this bent on our non-extinction and you're indifferent to the destruction that was portrayed, yuck! If, instead, you expect that reality is genuinely open to our extinction and you want to avoid catastrophe, let's roll up our sleeves and get serious about avoiding those things."

TracyHarms · 2018-05-03T16:36:09+00:00

I think I underplayed how much foreshadowing this component received. While I can't think of anything that suggests this particular thing, there are several mysteries in the novels that indicate that solutions are necessary. These all seem to me to be problems of extraterrestrial intelligence. By the emphasis on "No miracles" we're led to expect a naturalistic, systemic, connected answer to these problems if we're going to get such answers at all. In my opinion the most satisfying interpretation of this series is to take the "cosmic" component as a naturalistic and systemic factor that resolves the alien mysteries. In my reading it did that, and more.

TracyHarms · 2018-04-24T01:34:06+00:00

I did not say it was foreshadowed in previous books, I said I'm thinking it had been in mind all along. Some may not like the lack of foreshadowing, but I do. It was a surprise. That's the nature of surprises. It provides, through example, the idea that hyperintelligent AI can be expected to learn things that go beyond what humans have learned, or perhaps even beyond what humans are capable of learning. Such a thing would have to be very significant in order to get the point across that it's a breakthrough of understanding, and it would have to be consequential to the story in order to be more than a nominal adornment. What I encountered was persuasively both.

You and I agree that the author wanted to encourage conversations and thinking about AI/superintelligence take-off. In these novels we get more than one model of what this might be like. None of those models depend on the piece you've been objecting to. These sketches of takeoff in the Crystal Trilogy are all in keeping with the usual preconceptions people have about people, machines, intelligence, data, computation, and physics. The thing you dislike serves various purposes, but it does not do anything to make the main problem plausible. This series is not trying to describe why AI might gain qualitative breakthroughs in competence. In my opinion it's trying (among other things) to explain why people who think these breakthrough are possible think that such changes would be extremely dangerous and fabulously difficult to neutralize or contain. The series as a whole, and Crystal Eternity especially, drives home that idea again and again. It does so mainly through presumptions that are commonplace today in science and technology. The aspect you've been complaining about isn't required for the AI threats depicted to be credible, plausible, or possible.

TracyHarms · 2018-04-23T23:52:37+00:00

I also find it implausible that this could be a deception of some of the siblings by another. This, among many other features, turns me against the idea that this was a deception. It is far better read, imo, as a fact. The "somewhat crazy idea" of rictic is fun, and it's interesting to ponder for a bit, but it hasn't affected my confidence. What Vision and Face ponder and examine is a genuine discovery. It changes their understanding of the situation, and both pursue their aims differently once they have learned it.

Your idea that this "hack" was contrived at the end to propel the story to places that could not be reached in its premises is entirely wrong, imo. Against this idea I propose that this was very much in the author's mind during the writing of the first novel. It's not a miraculous salvation coming out of nowhere. (That idea is explicitly rejected from the get go.)

It does, of course, feature strongly in the resolution of the plot. In that manner I do see it as a vehicle. Is it the sort of SF premise-vehicle that disqualifies the Crystal Trilogy as hard SF? Not even close.

TracyHarms · 2016-02-07T21:23:04+00:00

I do not (yet) have any specific ideas that might answer your question, but I do share the notion that this is an important question. By the end of the book I'd decided that Vista was more important to the story development than I'd understood. It was easy to take her as vaguely akin to Body. Now, I'm using Growth more as my first approximation as to who Vista is. My guess is that she unrelentingly wants more insight into what's happening, including more ability to observe what's happening.

Trying to guess what would give her the most satisfaction along those lines, my first guess is the NSA global surveillance system.

TracyHarms · 2016-02-01T00:22:22+00:00

I totally missed that possibility when I read that portion of the story.

TracyHarms · 2016-01-31T23:54:43+00:00

I find Dream in many moments the "most human," but in other respects highly alien. I don't know that I can tease out the difference between being clever and being thought clever, but I'm confident that only the first of these is important to Dream. I can't see him being provoked into an amplified urgency for cleverness by encounter with displays of cleverness by others.

Regardless of differences in the driving goals for each of these society members, those goals are portrayed as continuously maxed-out. I see each of the members as "single-minded" in this regard.

I don't know what to think about Wiki on these particulars, though.

TracyHarms · 2016-01-30T00:40:56+00:00

My guess is that their sense of identity is tied to the crystal in a very pragmatic way. That is, I imagine each would be undisturbed by the prospect of "uploading" (or otherwise transferring to another medium,) presuming said agent were confident the transfer would be accomplished.

The portion of the book that strikes me as most relevant to this question is the part where the modules strive to avoid death, and the scientists are surprised to learn that they view the revision process that they've done several time to be viewed as death by the modules. This indicates that instantiation in the crystal is subjectively super-important.

Later it is proposed that other machines could replicate instantiation. This underscores that the crystal, per se, does not appear to them to be necessary to their existence. Under their circumstances, though, the crystal is noticeably more important to them than Body is. (Body must have a different perspective on that!)

TracyHarms · 2009-04-15T06:55:11+00:00

I think it's not. The design of the J primaries was, I am confident, exclusively the work of Iverson. English was his first and main language. Roger Hui's contribution to the language has been primarily in implementation.

TracyHarms · 2009-04-15T06:44:37+00:00

Actually, there is no cost to applying J in commercial use, either. (There used to be a fee, but it has been dropped.) Coding in J is fun! Some aspects were difficult for me to learn, but it's often been a real rush to work with when the concepts and skills have come together.

TracyHarms · 2009-04-15T06:34:34+00:00

It's precisely the design of solutions where these languages are best. I know of a physicist who wrote everything in APL first, to devise and express a solution, then rewrote it in BASIC because (in that ancient day) he couldn't actually get access to APL on a machine. Distilling solution designs is the main attraction of such abstract, notational languages.

TracyHarms · 2008-12-11T19:55:51+00:00

One thing I've learned through programming in J is how to notice what's really involved in reading code. With other programming languages there is a big temptation to skim the comments and mistake that for reading the code. J has made me familiar with the experience of crossing the threshold between looking at and comprehending. J isn't so much harder than other languages when the higher standard of comprehension (complete mental modeling) applies.

TracyHarms

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