PhilJones

ThoughtStorms Wiki

Guess I'm a typical online geek.

My personal homepage has evolved more into a site focused on my musical activities: http://www.synaesmedia.net

As of 2021 I'm putting more effort into the Synaesmedia YouTube channel (mainly about various geek / software strategies for making music) : https://www.youtube.com/user/synaesmedia/videos

Meanwhile, my geek / programmer / wiki-obsessive / DigitalGardening and MindTrafficGeometry activities are mainly captured at http://sdi.thoughtstorms.info/

I was writing way too much on Quora : http://www.quora.com/Phil-Jones so, as of 2021, I've closed my account and given up. But the (IMHO) best of my answers and writing on Quora are now being folded into ThoughtStorms.

I'm interested in, well, everything this wiki is about. But in summary ...

  • Music. Especially electronic, experimental and outsider music, but also big tunes, melodic and easy listening. And generally thinking about "theory" of music (both socially and "musicologically")
  • Programming These days mainly interested in FunctionalProgramming, ClojureLanguage and logic / declarative languages like PrologLanguage
  • I spent most of my 20s in academia thinking about ArtificialIntelligence, ArtificialLife, PhilosophyOfMind, and particularly IndividualRecognition. A lot of my friends are still from that period and many work professionally as philosophers or doing something with AI.
    • In the 2020s, of course, AI is now hugely hot and influential again because we've finally got some new very impressive NeuralNetworks / LanguageModels / Diffusers etc. Rest assured I'm as obsessed with this as many of you are, and am trying to keep up, play, experiment with it all. Particularly to help me program.
    • See MyFearsAboutAI for a deeper dive into my thoughts on AI and the issues around it.
  • DesktopFabrication / SoftwareThatMakesStuff Though this is rather on hiatus. Eventually I intend growing my Patterning software and ProjectRoseEngine into a full online tool for designing models ready for fabrication.
  • Politics and Economics. Though this is perhaps unhealthy and I'm trying to give it up. The world keeps dragging me back. I am broadly at the bottom left of the political compass holding some blend of far-left anti-capitalist, green, libertarian, socially liberal etc policies. See PoliticalStuff for more, but a lot of that writing is out of date.
    • I used to be particularly interested in AltMoney systems. So, obviously I am also interested in BlockChains and cryptocurrencies. Though I am neither a booster nor dismissive detractor. I do hold a tiny amount of crypto currency, so here's my CryptoDisclosure
  • Simulation. I used to work with AgentBasedSimulation, did some research into CompetitiveNetworkFormation. Because of my interest in money I also created OPTIMAES to understand more about it and economics.
  • I rave about OrganicArchitecture and how good dense, complex urban environments are ... possibly because I've lived in Brasilia

Transcluded from MySoftware

Software by PhilJones

A lot of my software can be found on GitHub : https://github.com/interstar or GitLab : https://gitlab.com/interstar

Current Software under active development

CardiganBay Wiki-Engine and Personal Knowledge Management ClojureLanguage
GoldenPond Music generation PythonLanguage and others
MindTrafficControl Todo Queue ClojureLanguage
Patterning / ProjectRoseEngine A visual pattern generation library and online playground ClojureLanguage
Gbloink! an interactive experimental instrument / art toy various languages over the years (from Visual Basic to C++ to Java to PythonLanguage), but most recent experiments in KotlinLanguage.

Rethinking

Zewp! another Art toy I tried out in various versions in various languages, now looks like being folded into Gbloink!
MachineGardens my ProcessingLanguage art project for designing machines, is being folded into ProjectRoseEngine
GatesOfDawn ... not much on this at the moment, but I think the idea of a better textual representation of synthesizers is coming back.

Appearance

I hate photos of me, so if I have to post one, might as well be somewhere interesting. (Atacama Desert, Northern Chile, Jan 2004)

See also GreatWallOfChina for old photo

Phil Jones

Anarchy. Abstraction. Systems. Patterns. Form.

http://pronoun.is/he

This card contains my HCard

GitHub for IndieLogin : http://github.com/interstar/

Twitter for IndieLogin : https://twitter.com/interstar

Quora Answer : What do you think of yourself?

Nov 23, 2017

Honest answer.

I personally think I have a ridiculous number of advantages in terms of privilege, wealth, education and intelligence. And straight "comfort".

And I am squandering them by not doing something more meaningful and significant with my life.

I dabble. I'm a dilettante. I like that. I give a lot of value to that freedom and self-direction and play. I do things that interest me. I try to help out in ways that seem to suit my personality and skills. I am always "busy" and never bored.

BUT ... in the dark nights of self-examination, I think ... "bloody hell, the decades are flowing past so quickly now, and I'm not "achieving" (for some value of achieve) what I could / should be able to. Either for myself or for the world."

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