Welcome

This web is a total ego trip as most of the stuff on the web. You will find some, probably useless, information about me and my life. If you already know me you might find that more fun. If you happen to be interested in computer programming, then you might find some useful information here. If you also are using Macromedia Director, then you might even enjoy your stay because these pages are mainly about interesting things to do with that software package.

If you are a programmer you have most likely wondered about how they make all that nifty artifical intelligence in everything from search engines to computer games. If you are anything like me you probably went onto the web looking for information about the topic. Chances are high that you found pages dealing with neural networks, genetic algorithms, artificial life and the likes where you could read really enlightning stuff like:

A linear combiner arises if the the linear region of operation is maintained without running into saturation. The piecewise-linear function reduces to a threshold funcion if the amplification factor of the linear region is made infinitely large which can be shown by the equation...

Now is the time when you go "Wow! That's really kewl. I gotta use that in my next project". If you actually did say that you can probably stop reading now. This is not intended for you. It contains way too many generalizations for your taste. On the other hand, if you are like the majority of us multimedia producers and need understandable explanations with real world examples, then you might find something useful.

A word of warning
When you browse these pages, be aware that some of the things might not fit in your own model of how things "are" in the art of software development. Some explanations are huge generalizations and lots of code is far from optimized. The intent of these webpages is not to teach lingo programming, there are enough of good pages already on that subject. The only purpose of these pages is to give you some new ideas on how to use the Director package. Some examples may at first glance seem farfetched and others ridiculously obvious. So now you're warned.

Neural networks and genetic algorithms are in fact real powerful stuff. It can help you with things like recognizing users on your website. Providing tailormade content to the client that use your multimedia presentation. It can even learn and adapt to your users varying interests. Seriously...it can! On this web I am going to explain what it is and how you use it.

You will also be able to learn a valuable tool when it comes to programming, especially programming of artificial intelligence (AI), namely Object Oriented Programming (OOP). Don't worry, it's not any more difficult than what you are used to. It just takes a different mindset to understand. If you already know about this you can skip that part and jump head first into a magical world full of neural nets and mutating computer programs.

Sweden, march 4, 2002

/jocce