Ken Perlin

His website is pretty interesting. I wish I understood more about how he was creating these little games/programs. I tried to play the sheep one and the crossword/maze, and I guess I'm just not technologically inclined enough to understand how they work. I enjoyed his blog a lot more because he's asking some really interesting questions. I was particularly curious about this blog entry on developing a computer that could have the computational skills of a human brain. The thought that if we could develop something with a power of a brain, what happens when we go beyond that, will these brain computers be able to outsmart us, will they no longer have a need for us? I know this day is far into the future but who knows how far, and what the implications will be.
It's clear that Ken is extremely advanced in his understanding of computers and how to manipulate them. The program he created to create textures with "Noise-Turbulence" is amazing, however, I have no idea how it works. I'm not even sure why it's called noise-turbulence, so this will definitely be something I ask about when we meet him at his lab. Nevertheless, the output of this program is amazing, especially the liquid textures. I thought it was great that the inspiration came to him at 4am drinking coffee.
As for the PAD technology, I had no idea that this was created so long ago. I don't know why I haven't really seen it used until the IPhone/IPod Touch, but perhaps I just haven't seen where it was used before that. The idea is genius, to give us infinite space by playing with depth, I see it as a really practical piece of software and I wish we could use it for text documents (as a college student I see this as a cool way to take notes, so that I can add little pieces of information or links to specific notes I take).