By way of mert_mt_bc

[ellyssian]

1) Go to my userinfo and pick five of my interests that you would like me to explain.
2) Reply to this post with the five you pick.
3) I will attempt to explain why they are interesting to me.
4) If I respond to you, you must post this in your journal as well, and respond to queries about your interests.

Comments

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

ambeon
Gödel's incompleteness theorem
memetics
refactoring
tanson house

I don't know if any of the others besides Gödel need to be capitalized so I left them lowercase. First, explain what they are and then why they are interesting. These were the only ones on your list I was unfamiliar with.

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Ambeon is a side-project of Anthony Arjen Lucassen - essentially music from his "Ayreon" recordings, with a more ambient twist (hence the name which is just a combination. I believe the vocalist he worked with on the disc was only fourteen at the time, and she wrote all the lyrics. Instrumentation varies a little, and features fiddles and some other Celtic influences along with AAL's guitar. Very good music, very good voice.

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem was brought to my attention through Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - essentially, it is the strange loops that interest me. This is still an ongoing study for me.

Memetics - best to step back a bit first:

• Meme: an information pattern, held in an individual's memory, which is capable of being copied to another individual's memory.


• Memetics: the theoretical and empirical science that studies the replication, spread and evolution of memes.

A friend of mine came up with a physics of ideas and that got me into exploring further.

Refactoring is the process of taking a piece of software that might work but might not have been done in the best way - especially if it's been modified here and there over time - and sitting down with it to simplify and improve the code, without the intention of changing the features or user-experience. I'd like to do more of this for a living, as our code - like most - could use some help.

Tamson House is a fictional place in Charles de Lint's fictional world - and it's also a mailing list of some very diverse, intelligent folks that is remarkably similar to the fictional place. Sometimes the mail even gets routed through faerie.

[windswept.livejournal.com]

blackmores night
brian froud
edible forests
iaido
tree herding

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Blackmore's Night is Ritchie Blackmore's (Deep Purple, Rainbow) band with his wife, Candace Night. They play originals and traditional music with Renaisance Faires and minstrels as the primary themes. I love Ritchie's playing - it's had an influence on me throughout most of my time playing the guitar, even if it was through other intermediaries at times. Since I also happen to like music of the variety the band plays, that makes it that much More Betterer(tm).

Brian Froud is an incredible artist who specializes in all things fey. If you've seen Labyrinth or Dark Crystal, you've seen his hand in design (and if you've seen the former, you've also already met his son, Toby, who stars as, well, Toby.) I have most of the books he's been involved in and love his art. I even had a poem featured on his website. =)

Edible Forests are a relatively recent addition to the list, and relate to both permaculture and agroforestry. Before I started looking into them, I was trying to plant things on my little plot of land that I could eat - without having the problems associated with stripping the land and planting and maintaining a traditional garden.

Iaido is the art of drawing the sword. I haven't practiced this for a while, but I expect that by next spring I'll be in good enough shape to start up again. Since one of the classic examples of iaido is to be like the deer that suddenly appears in a forest glade, and then is gone when next you look, I should have some good inspiration with the herds roaming through, creating a quite different definition of 'edible forests' than I'd like!

Tree Herding is shamelessly ripped off from Tolkien's ents, but it is an accurate description of my favorite interest. I can often be found walking around my property, examining each and every tree I've planted, and a steadily growing number of chance arrivals.

Choices choices

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

Bards, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Urban Fantasy, Raptors, Hammered Dulcimers

And I would like to hear why they're interesting to you as well as definitions (if applicable).

Re: Choices choices

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Bards represent a combination of several interests - both of historical study and of musicians. An early stage of the singer-songwriter, if you will.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favorite Tim Burton films, although I - at the least - like every one I've seen. The merging of Halloween with Christmas is, to me, a summary of everything Tim Burton stands for - the mix of wonder and horror, crystalline beauty and headless bodies walking around. Also, it explains a lot about those "holiday worlds of old."

Urban Fantasy is, at its most simple level, self explanatory: a fantasy work that takes place in an urban environment. de Lint comes to mind, as does Gaiman. For some, the definition tends to be better rendered as "modern fantasy", which is somewhat applicable given the tendency to pave everything and make it all urban. For me, it's glimpses of other worlds and magic, hidden in cobblestone streets, around the corner from everyday life - close enough to catch an occasional song or smell a fragrant woodland upon the breeze, but hidden well enough that on your second glance you may only see an alley way with an overflowing dumpster.

Raptors - I tend to favor the red tailed hawk, gyrfalcon, snowy owl, and eagle. About five years ago we started going to Hawk Mountain to watch the fall migration. Now I live further up along the ridge, essentially right under their migration. Beautiful and fascinating creatures.

Hammered Dulcimers are a stringed instrument, played with small wooden sticks. I have one that was custom built for my mother, and, for some reason, she decided I should have it. I have far-from-mastered it - and it's missing a bridge piece that prevents me from tuning a couple of strings - but it does have a beautiful sound. It will, if left uncovered, have a tendency to play along with you, quite literally vibrating in harmony.

[lunajewels.livejournal.com]

within temptation
neural computer interfaces
iaido
cthulhu
shayara

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Within Temptation is a gothic metal band (I suppose you could apply that label to them...) fronted by Sharon den Adel, who I'm actually more familiar with from her guest appearances with numerous other artists. Their material seems to be exceedingly difficult to import - even for a friend, who runs a business specializing in such music.

Neural computer interfaces are something I've been interested in for quite a while. When I'm creating new stories and poems, I tend to be unable to keep up with my thoughts typing-wise (after all, I can only do about 80-90wpm when copying off a sheet; I'd assume I'm faster from the top of my head, but I've never got an official count.) I've always thought it would be great if you could actually directly interact with a computer, without the fingers and eyes getting involved to slow you down. One of the few sci-fi-ish themes I'm actually interested in, although the interest itself is regarding making it reality, not keeping it in a work of fiction.

I already answered the Iaido one above - go ahead and pick another! =)

Cthulhu is sleeping. Shhhh... don't wake him! I've been a fan of HP Lovecraft's writing since a vocalist I worked with told me I should read him, because he apparently wrote like I did. It didn't hurt that, at the time, we were hanging around in some of the areas HPL wrote of, and that Newburyport - when covered in a mist - could easily be just up the coast from Innsmouth.

shayara is shadesong's creation. Check it out! =)

[lunajewels.livejournal.com]

oh shoot! how about

taiko

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Taiko is Japanese drumming. I first saw and heard it in the Sean Connery/Wesley Snipes movie Rising Sun, and you can catch it now on at least one or two commercials (one for cars, I believe.)

Although I have some taiko cds - one very pure, the other mixed in here and there with a fretless bass or other western instrument - taiko is best experienced live. A good portion of the enjoyment for me is watching the energy of the performers - it's a very visual medium.

I wouldn't mind pairing some of my guitar work with a taiko ensemble, but, then again, sometimes it can be hard enough when working with a single drummer, let alone a troupe! =)

[ozanbaba.livejournal.com]

artificial intelligence, chaos theory, gödel's i.t., HG2G, unix

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Artificial intelligence is an ongoing study of mine - whether or not it's possible, whether or not it's ethical, and so forth. It's a particular rant of mine that video game AI is really just A. The intelligence there is that of the programmers, defining the behavior to occur given a wider variety of information points than previous game creations - the characters.

Chaos theory is, the inaccurate example in Jurassic Park aside, exceedingly interesting to me. The "most in/famous" part of it's quite simple: small changes to the initial state of a dynamic system can cause large changes to the output. It also encompasses self-similar structures. IMO, Euclidean geometry covers manmade stuff and gross approximations; fractal geometry covers everything else (that statement is, itself, a gross approximation, of course!)

I already talked about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem above, so you can pick another one! =)

The Hitchhiker's Guide taught me long ago not to panic. Or, if I felt the need to panic, to open the book. And, of course, to carry a towel.

UNIX is the platform I work on most days, although, unfortunately, my actual workstation is not even UNIX-like.