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We've carefully chosen an awesome and diverse panel of mentors to provide practical advice as you turn your ideas into products that will push the Web forward. These are some of the most brilliant minds on the Web today, and they're here for you. Teams will spend time with mentors each week during WebFWD. We will continue to add mentors throughout the program, so check back often for new additions.WebFWD Mentors
Enrique’s mission is to inspire startups to empathize & solve latent needs. Before being the founding designer at 500 Startups, he did UX design for Facebook's fbFund & Venrock. He continues to teach with the Stanford d.school & Persuasive Tech Lab.
Dion is a technologist that loves to code, and enjoys wearing multiple hats. He loves community (FunctionSource.com, Ajaxian.com, TheServerSide.com), and building products (at Set Direction, Palm, Mozilla, Google, and beyond).
Mitchell is responsible for setting the direction and scope of the Mozilla Foundation and its activities. She leads a worldwide organization of employees and volunteers committed to an open, innovative Web and the infinite possibilities it presents.
Chrissie is a user advocate and catalyst for testing ideas out on websites. She has helped several startup projects seal up experience leaks and abandonment by designing unique onboarding flows.
Garrett has guided StumbleUpon's development since 2001, from inception to more than 15 million registered users. StumbleUpon is now the largest personalized content discovery engine on the web.
Dedicated to advancing open standards and simpler data formats for the Web, Tantek Çelik is a computer scientist for Microformats.org and works with numerous clients, such as Mozilla and Revision3, on web standards leadership and HTML5 upgrades.
Mobile startup junkie, love building things from scratch.
Mary specializes in community instigation and setting the odd world record. She thrives on fostering and converting users and supporters into champions for the Mozilla project.
Marco loves working with those unique entrepreneurs who want to change the world!
Kyle primarily focuses on investments in the consumer internet sector on the Information Technology team. Previously he was a Research Associate at Morgan Stanley.
UC Berkeley Professor, venture capitalist and successful entrepreneur Jerry is an internationally recognized expert in innovation and entrepreneurship.
Created JavaScript, co-founded the mozilla.org project, helped launch the award winning Firefox Web browser and Thunderbird e-mail client. He is dedicated to driving innovation in Internet technology.
Jane leads global user engagement and acquisition for Mozilla Firefox. Jane held various positions at eBay, Sotheby's and Channel Advisor, crafting her art of marketing over the past 15 years.
Entrepreneur (couple of times), big company dude, consultant to startups, venture capitalist and finally seen the light: Director @Mozilla.
Alex leads strategic and operational initiatives on privacy and information management. He is a dedicated professional focused on consumer rights, privacy by design and data governance.
Product design activist. Former design lead for Google's Gmail, Calendar, and Reader, FriendFeed, Facebook Games and Yahoo! Messenger.
Ben, co-founder of Ajaxian.com, headed Developer Tools at Mozilla. He wrote his first code at the age of six, started his first business at ten, sold three companies, and has held CEO, CIO, and CTO positions in various industries.
Mark has an extensive track record of working with high growth companies as an entrepreneur, executive and angel investor. Exits from his angel investments include Mint, Baby Center, PayCycle and Nolo.com.
Mike has been a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and inventor for nearly 20 years, with career stops at Apple, Stanford, Reactivity (as co-founder, acquired by Cisco), and Mozilla Labs.
As a seasoned web developer with companies like Yahoo, author of several books and a truckload of presentations at conferences he knows not only how to build things but also how to explain them in a simple and interesting manner.
Eliot is CTO of 10gen, the company that sponsors the open source MongoDB project. Eliot is one of the core MongoDB kernel committers. Eliot is also the co-founder and chief scientist of ShopWiki.
Andrew is a successful scientist, business executive, entrepreneur, and educator. He is passionate about mentoring the next generation of technology business leaders.
Eric was one of the first employees of Braintree. His business development and sales skills formed the basis for the sales process that has helped transform Braintree into one of the top 50 fastest growing businesses in America.
Previously lead advisor for mobile products at Aardvark until acquired by Google. Nominated by BusinessWeek as one of America's Top Entrepreneurs under the age of 25 for his success with Bluepulse.
Gary is leading the overall direction of the organization and the Firefox Web browser. Prior to joining Mozilla, Gary held senior leadership roles at Sybase, Adobe and Macromedia.
Brian LeRoux is responsible for the development team at Nitobi Software that now focuses primarily on the PhoneGap project. A web worker most of his life, he has a non-breaking space tattoo and is the creator of wtfjs.com.
Currently a partner at Greylock Partners that invested in Facebook, LinkedIn and Pandora. Previously CEO of Mozilla, and involved in numerous for-profit and non-profit technology startups.
Prior to joining Mozilla, she co-created the first conference to focus on tech failures (FailCon) and co-founded a clean tech startup (Wattbot). She has also worked as a freelance researcher for technology and healthcare startups.
Ash is the founder of USERcycle. Since bootstrapping his last company seven years ago, he has launched five products and one peer-to-web application framework. He recently turned his lean startup experience into a book: Running Lean.
Mayumi loves bringing new products to the market. Previously, Mayumi worked at Google for over 5 years on mobile, consumer and advertising products.
Raised in a startup environment, specializes in bridging the gap between Innovation and Operations, making sure the Next Thing can scale to be the Next Big Thing.
I am a practitioner of a lean startup way of working and passionate (addicted?) to starting web businesses. I learned my trade as the CTO of Kazaa for 5 years and I am a founder member of the Data Portability initiative.
Nick is currently a co-founder at Tasty Labs. In previous lives, he was a product manager on Yahoo! Answers and del.icio.us, as well as the Director of Add-ons at Mozilla.
Itamar focuses on early-stage investments in the mobile and consumer-facing Web space. Previously, Sr. Director of Product Management at Gigya, product development lead in Enelita and co-founder of two start-ups.
Bre Pettis makes things that make things.
Called an interface guru by publications like Wired and Fast Company, Aza is the co-founder of Massive Health, and was until recently Creative Lead for Firefox.
Dean of Open Source and the Head of JavaScript Development, Khan Academy. Also the author of the book Pro JavaScript Techniques, the creator and lead developer of the jQuery JavaScript library.
Passionate about helping teams turn ideas into products that people love. Previously worked at IDEO and eBay as a lead designer. Besides working at a startup called Peel, Oscar is also a mentor and matchmaker at The Designer Fund.
As President of 10gen, Max is responsible for building and extending 10gen/MongoDB's market leadership. Prior to joining 10gen, Max spent 7 years at MarkLogic, where he played a variety of executive roles including Chief Operating Officer.
Melissa leads a global team of communicators who help Mozilla's stories reach the world. A seasoned PR vet, she cut her teeth during the dot-com boom and went on to build public profiles for a wide range of technology companies.
Ragavan loves working on early stage products. Previously, he worked at VMware and HP. Ragavan also co-founded Kids on Computers, a non-profit that sets up computer labs in developing countries.
Jinghua is an advocate and catalyst for understanding your users. She has guided several startup projects to align product strategy with user needs. She loves to help solve real (un-articulated) problems for people.
Andrea’s been an active angel investor since 2006. XG Ventures has invested in over 25 companies with over 5 exits, including Tapulous and Aardvark. Andrea worked at Google for over 7 years as one of the first ad sales executives.
AgileZen is an easy-to-use project management tool that helps people organize their work visually and collaborate with a team. More than a simple to-do list, AgileZen shows all the steps work has to go through to be complete and where everything is in the process. This means that a user can quickly see what's important to their team and what needs to be worked on next.
The Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences is a global alliance of micro-trustees dedicated to forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe. It provides monthly, no-strings-attached grants of $1,000 to support innovative projects and efforts that surprise and delight worldwide.
Braintree helps businesses process credit card payments by providing a merchant account, payment gateway, recurring billing and credit card storage. They're unlike others in the industry: they think and do things differently and are frequently told by their customers that they are the best payments company they've ever worked with.
The Designer Fund is a community of designers who invest in designer founders through mentorship and angel funding, like AngelList for designers. Industry leading designers representing major platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn), consultancies (IDEO, Cooper, Jump Associates, Frog, Method), and startups (Path, Flipboard, Peel) select applying candidates for angel investments and referrals to partners including accelerators like WebFWD.
Founder Labs is a 5-week pre-incubator focused on the first phase of launching a mobile startup - finding a team and validating the business idea. Through Founder Labs, aspiring founders build a founding team, learn technical, lean startup skills, validate ideas to find the right product-market fit and rapidly prototype and test.What does this look like? The breakdown: 50% male, 50% female. 50% technical, 50% non-technical.
(mt) Media Temple is a web hosting and cloud services provider headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Since 1998, we have provided businesses and consumers around the world with professional-class service to host websites, applications, virtual servers, email, and other rich Internet content. Our infrastructure serves approximately 100,000 customers and over 1 million websites in top-tier datacenters on the east and west coasts of the United States.
Pivotal Labs is a software development consultancy working with early stage startups, growth stage startups, and small innovative groups within larger enterprises. Pivotal works with teams to co-develop products rapidly and iteratively, building a solid technical foundation and a culture that supports rapid product development over the long term.
Pollenizer creates web businesses. We take innovative ideas and turn them into investable businesses. Some would say we are an incubator but we think we're something altogether different. Since inception, we have created a process that gets out portfolio companies in front of customer quickly and measures performance for maximum impact and investor confidence.
Seedcamp is an early-stage micro seed investment fund and mentoring programme that was was created to jumpstart the entrepreneurial community in Europe by connecting next generation developers and entrepreneurs with over 1200 mentors. Across 10 global Mini Seedcamps spread throughout the year and our annual week-long forum (Seedcamp Week), we bring together EMEA’s top young founders with a world-class network of mentors in one place.
Teens in Tech Labs provides tools and resources to young entrepreneurs globally to help foster entrepreneurship at a young age. Founded on the premise that entrepreneurship doesn’t happen at a certain age or a certain location, Teens in Tech Labs provides a support community and network to help young entrepreneurs create innovative and disruptive businesses.


Draw a shape below to perform a land use and soil survey
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Selmer Bringsjord specializes in the logico-mathematical and
philosophical foundations of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science.
He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania,
and a PhD from Brown University.
Since 87 he has been on faculty in the Departments of Philosophy, Psychology
and Cognitive Science, and Computer Science, at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York.
Bringsjord was on Rensselaer's team that won the prestigious Hesburgh
Award (1995) for excellence in undergraduate education (for technology-based
intereactive learning). He was also a Lilly Fellow in 1989. He is co-director
of the Autopoesis Project (in AI and creativity).
Bringsjord is author of the critically acclaimed What Robots Can &
Can't Be (1992, Kluwer; ISBN 0-7923-1662-2), which is concerned with the
future of attempts to create robots that behave as humans. Two new technical
books, Superminds: A Defense of Uncomputable Cognition, and Artificial
Intelligence and Literary Creativity: Inside the Mind of Brutus, A Storytelling
Machine, are out this year (Kluwer Academic/Lawrence Erlbaum). His book
Abortion: A Dialogue has been published this past Fall by Hackett.
He has lectured and interviewed in person across the United States,
and abroad.
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Is It Possible to Build Dramatically
Compelling Interactive Digital Entertainment
(in the form, e.g., of computer games)?*1
by Selmer Bringsjord
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Lots of computer games are compelling. E.g., I find even current computerized
poker games quite compelling, and I find The Sims downright fascinating;
doubtless you have your own favorites. But our planet isn't graced by
even one dramatically compelling computer game (or, more generally,
one such interactive digital entertainment). The movie T2, Dante's
Inferno, Hamlet, Gibson's prophetic Neuromancer,
the plays of Ibsen -- these things are dramatically compelling: they succeed
in no small part because they offer captivating narrative, and all that
that entails (e.g., engaging characters). There is no analogue in the
interactive digital arena, alas. Massively multi-player online games are
digital, interactive, and entertaining -- but they have zero literary
power (which explains why, though T2 engages young kids through
at least middle-aged professors, such games are demographically one-dimensional).
The same can be said, by my lights, for all other electronic genres.
This state of affairs won't change unless a number of key challenges
are conquered; and conquering them will require some seminal advances
in the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and narrative. (E.g.,
since interactive digital narrative will need to be crafted and massaged
as the story is unfolding, computers, not slow-by-comparison
humans, will need to be enlisted as at least decent dramatists -- but
getting a computer to be a dramatist requires remarkable AI.) In this
paper, I discuss one of these challenges for the start of the new millennium:
the problem of building dramatically compelling virtual characters.
Within this challenge I focus upon one property such characters presumably
must have: viz., autonomy.
We have dramatically compelling non-interactive digital (= electronic)
entertainment: sit down and watch The Matrix (see Figure 1) or T2 (see Figure
2). We have compelling interactive
digital entertainment; my favorites include console-based sports games.2 We have dramatically compelling
interactive entertainment; for example, improvizational theatre. What
we don't have is dramatically compelling interactive digital
entertainment. People sometimes tell me that there is a counter-example
to my negative view to be found in online multi-player games, but though
such games are digital, interactive, and entertaining -- they have zero
literary power (which explains why, though T2 engages young kids
through at least middle-aged professors, such games are demographically
one-dimensional). The same can be said, by my lights, for all other electronic
genres. Can we build systems that imply and affirmative answer to the
title of this paper? My answer is: ``Maybe, maybe not; but at any rate
I can tell you, at least in broad strokes, what some of the hurdles are,
from the standpoint of AI. And I can tell you, today, about one specific
hurdle."
Figure 1: From a Dramatically Compelling Scene
in The Matrix
|
Before we go any further, let's make sure we're realistic about the driving
question, and thereby start with a provisional answer of ``I don't know."
Such realism will buck the trend. For unfortunately, realistic positions
on the advance of AI are rather hard to come by. There are two reasons
for this.
The first reason is that lots of people are either ignorant of or tendentiously
choose to ignore the underlying mathematical facts. These facts include
that some problems can be solved by computing machines, and others can't,
and that most can't. So whenever you ask whether a problem P can
be solved by a computing machine, where P is such that it isn't
known that there is an algorithm for solving it, honesty should imply
wait-and-see agnosticism.3
Figure 2: POV of the Terminator in T2
|
The second reason why realism in the face of questions like that which
drives the present investigation is in short supply is that we have lots
of silly prophets. For example, in the June 19, 2000 issue of TIME
magazine, devoted to ``The Future of Technology," we hear from author
and inventor Ray Kurzweil that nanobots (microscopic robots) will by 2030
be able to map out a synthetic duplicate of your brain after you swallow
(yes, swallow) a few of them. This duplicate will be instantiated in computer
hardware 10 million times faster than the sluggish, old-fashioned grey
stuff inside your cranium; the result will be an artificial intelligence
immeasurably more clever than you. Vernor Vinge, associate professor of
mathematics and computer science at San Diego State University, is another
example. Prophesying for the Chronicle of Higher Education (July
12, 2000; online edition), he gives us a more compressed timeline: by
his lights, on the strength of the trend that the speed of computer hardware
doubles every 18 months, computers will be more intelligent than all humans
at some point within 20 years. This point he calls ``The Singularity,"
which ushers in post-humanity, an age in which humans are left in the
dust by machines that get exponentially smarter by the day (if not the
nanosecond). For a third example, consider Hans Moravec, who in his latest
book, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, informs us that
because hardware is getting faster at the rate Vinge cites, by 2040 ``fourth
generation" robots will exceed humans in all respects, from running companies
to writing novels. Such robots will evolve to such lofty cognitive heights
that we will stand to them as single-cell organisms stand to us today.
Many others in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) predict the same
sensational future unfolding on about the same rapid schedule.
The gaming industry will not be this lucky; I'm sure of it. Today I'll
tell you, briefly, why.
Let make explicit one presupposition before we begin in earnest. I assume
that AI in general, along with the AI part of the gaming industry in particular,
have realized that non-logicist AI isn't magic. What do I mean? I mean
that people should be smart enough now to concede that no system is going
to automatically learn, through subsymbolic, numerical processing, how
to, say (and this is the challenge I'm going to focus on below), assemble
robust, autonomous characters in a game. Automated learning through artificial
neural networks and genetic algorithms are fine for certain applications,
but gone, I assume, are the days of wild optimism about the ability of
such learning techniques to automatically yield (to stick with this example)
full-blooded NPCs.4 We really only have two overall
approaches to AI: one based on logic, and one based on subsymbolic processing.
This paper is written from the perspective of logic. If you think that
you have a way of solving the problems I'm talking about without using
logic, I wish you well.
Very well. So, why is it that building dramatically compelling interactive
digital entertainment (in the form, e.g., of games) is so difficult? There
are many reasons, among which fall the following.
- C1: Formalizing Literary Themes.
-
If Dave Ferrucci and I are right, plotlines and so-called 3-dimensional
characters aren't enough for a computer to generate first-rate narrative:
you also need to instantiate immemorial themes -- betrayal (the one
we focus on in (Bringsjord & Ferrucci, 2000)), self-deception
(a theme we employ in BRUTUS), unrequited love, revenge,
and so on. If such themes are to be used by story-managing machines,
they must be represented; if they are to be represented and exploited,
they need to be rigorously represented and reasoned over.
Such rigorous representation and reasoning is very hard to come by.
- C2: Story Mastery.
-
After interactive drama begins, things can devolve toward the uninteresting.
If ``hack-and-slash" is all that is sought from an interactive game,
then such devolution may be acceptable. But if genuine drama is desired,
then something or someone must ensure that what happens is dramatically
interesting. One possibility (with respect to a multi-player online
game) is to have a human or humans oversee the action as it unfolds,
and make changes that keep things ``on track." For obvious reasons,
in a rapidly progressing game with thousands of human players, this
is impracticable; the possibility of human oversight is purely conceptual.
So we must turn to computers to automate the process. But how? How
is the automation to work? I've assumed that if a program could be
built that writes compelling fiction, we might thereby have taken
significant steps toward a program that can serve as a story master.
- C3: Building Robust, Autonomous Characters.
-
A sine qua non for compelling literature and drama is the
presence of robust, autonomous, and doxastically sophisticated5 characters. In short, such literature
and drama exploits the central properties of being a person. (In many
cases, great stories come to be remembered in terms of great characters.)
This presents a problem for interactive electronic entertainment:
how do we build an electronic character that has those attributes
that are central to personhood, and whose interaction with those humans
who enter the virtual worlds is thereby compelling?
- C4: Personalization.
-
If virtual characters are going to react intelligently to you as
user or gamer, they must, in some sense, understand you.
This problem is directly related to C3, because the characters must
have sophisticated beliefs about you and your beliefs, etc.
-
In the remainder of this paper, I focus on C3, and moreover I focus within
this challenge on the specific problem of building autonomous characters.
The plan is as follows. I begin by reviewing the concept of an intelligent
agent in AI. I then explain the clash between this limited concept
and the kind of properties that are distinctive of personhood; one of
these properties is autonomy, or ``free will." In order to highlight the
problem of imparting autonomy to a virtual character, I turn to what I
have dubbed ``The Lovelace Test."  I do intimate
my own reaction to this argument.
As the century turns, all of AI has been to an astonishing degree unified
around the conception of an intelligent agent. The unification has in
large part come courtesy of a comprehensive textbook intended to cover
literally all of AI: Russell and Norvig's (1994) Artificial Intelligence: A Modern
Approach (AIMA), the cover of which also displays the phrase
``The Intelligent Agent Book." The overall, informal architecture for
an intelligent agent is shown in Figure 3; this is taken directly from the
AIMA text. According to this architecture, agents take percepts
from the environment, process them in some way that prescribes actions,
perform these actions, take in new percepts, and continue in the cycle.6
Figure 3: The Architecture of an Intelligent
Agent
|
In AIMA, intelligent agents fall on a spectrum from least intelligent
to more intelligent to most intelligent. The least intelligent artificial
agent is a ``TABLE-DRIVEN-AGENT,"
the program (in pseudo-code) for which is shown in Figure 4. Suppose that we have a set of actions
each one of which is the utterance of a color name (``Green," ``Red,"
etc.); and suppose that percepts are digital expressions of the color
of an object taken in by the sensor of a table-driven agent. Then given
Table 1 our simple intelligent agent, running the program
in Figure 4, will utter (through a voice synthesizer,
assume) ``Blue" if its sensor detects 100. Of course, this is a stunningly
dim agent. What are smarter ones like?
Figure 4: The Least Intelligent Artificial
Agent
|
Table 1: Lookup Table for TABLE-DRIVEN-AGENT
| Percept |
Action |
| 001 |
``Red" |
| 010 |
``Green" |
| 100 |
``Blue" |
| 011 |
``Yellow" |
| 111 |
``Black" |
|
|
Figure 5: Program for a Generic Knowledge-Based
Agent
|
In AIMA we reach artificial agents that might strike some as
rather smart when we reach the level of a ``knowledge-based" agent. The
program for such an agent is shown in Figure 5. This program presupposes an agent that
has a knowledge-base (KB) in which what the agent knows is stored
in formulae in the propositional calculus, and the functions
- TELL, which injects sentences (representing facts)
into KB;
- MAKE-PERCEPT-SENTENCE,
which generates a propositional calculus sentence from a percept and
the time t at which it is experienced; and
- MAKE-ACTION-SENTENCE,
which generates a declarative fact (in, again, the propositional calculus)
expressing that an action has been taken at some time t
Figure 6: A Typical Wumpus World
|
which give the agent the capacity to manipulate information in accordance
with the propositional calculus. (One step up from such an agent would
be a knowledge-based agent able to represent and reason over information
expressed in full first-order logic.) A colorful example of such an agent
is one clever enough to negotiate the so-called ``wumpus world." An example
of such a world is shown in Figure 6. The objective of the agent that finds
itself in this world is to find the gold and bring it back without getting
killed. As Figure 6 indicates, pits are always surrounded
on three sides by breezes, the wumpus is always surrounded on three sides
by a stench, and the gold glitters in the square in which it's positioned.
The agent dies if it enters a square with a pit in it (interpreted as
falling into a pit) or a wumpus in it (interpreted as succumbing to an
attack by the wumpus). The percepts for the agent can be given in the
form of quadruples. For example,
means that the agent, in the square in which it's located, perceives
a stench, a breeze, a glitter, and no scream. A scream occurs when the
agent shoots an arrow that kills the wumpus. There are a number of other
details involved, but this is enough to demonstrate how command over the
propositional calculus can give an agent a level of intelligence that
will allow it to succeed in the wumpus world. For the demonstration, let
Si,j represent the fact that there is
a stench in column i row j, let Bi,j
denote that there is a breeze in column i row j, and let
Wi,j denote that there is a wumpus in
column i row j. Suppose now that an agent has the following
5 facts in its KB.
- 1.
-
- 2.
-
- 3.
-
- 4.
-
- 5.
Then in light of the fact that
in the propositional calculus,7 the agent can come to know (=
come to include in its KB) that the wumpus is at location column
1 row 3 -- and this sort of knowledge should directly contribute to the
agent's success.
In my lab, a number of students have built actual wumpus-world-winning
robots; for a picture of one toiling in this world see Figure 7.
Now I have no problem believing that the techniques and formalisms that
constitute the agent-based approach preached in AIMA are sufficient
to allow for the construction of characters that operate at the level
of animals. But when we reach the level of personhood, all bets, by my
lights, are off.
Figure:
A Real-Life Wumpus-World-Winning Robot in the Minds & Machines
Laboratory (Observant readers may note that the wumpus here is represented
by a figurine upon which appears the (modified) face of the Director
of the M &M Lab: Bringsjord.)
|
Why is it that intelligent agent techniques will allow us to build virtual
rats, parrot, and chimps, but fail when we attempt to build virtual persons?
 What are these properties? Many philosophers have taken up the
challenge of answering this question, but for present purposes it suffices
to call upon an account of personhood offered in (Bringsjord, 1997); in fact, it suffices
to list here only five of the properties offered in that account, viz.,8
- 1. ability to communicate in a language
- 2. autonomy (``free will")
- 3. creativity
- 4. phenomenal consciousness
- 5. robust abstract reasoning (e.g., ability to create conceptual schemes,
and to switch from one to another)
For the sake of argument I'm prepared to follow Turing and hold that
AI will engineer not only the communicative powers of a parrot and a chimp,
but also the linguistic powers of a human person. (This concession requires
considerable optimism: The current state-of-the art in AI is unable to
create a device with the linguistic capacity of a toddler.) However, it's
exceedingly hard to see how each of the four remaining properties can
be reduced to the machinery of the intelligent agent paradigm in AI. Intelligent
agents don't seem to originate anything; they seem to do just what they
have been designed to do. And so it's hard to see how they can originate
decisions and actions (``free will") or artifacts (creativity). At least
at present, it's hard to see how phenomenal consciousness can be captured
in any third-person scheme whatever (and as many readers will know, a
number of philosophers -- Nagel, e.g. -- have argued that such consciousness
can never be captured in such a scheme), let alone in something as austere
as what AI engineers work with. And those in AI who seek to model abstract
reasoning know well that we have only begun to show how sophisticated
abstract reasoning can be cast in well-understood computable logics. For
all we know at present, it may be that some of this reasoning is beyond
the reach of computation. Certainly such reasoning cannot be cashed out
in the vocabulary of AIMA, which stays firmly within extensional
first-order logic.
But let's focus, as I said I would, on the issue of autonomous intelligent
agents. I believe I have a way of sharpening the challenge that this issue
presents to those who aspire to create dramatically compelling interactive
electronic entertainment. This way involves subjecting would-be autonomous
virtual characters to a form of the Lovelace Test. But first, I have to
introduce the test.
As you probably know, Turing predicted in his famous ``Computing Machinery
and Intelligence" (1964) that by the turn of the century computers
would be so smart that when talking to them from a distance (via email,
if you will) we would not be able to tell them from humans: they would
be able to pass what is now known as the Turing Test (TT). Well, New Year's
Eve of 1999 has come and gone, all the celebratory pyrotechnics have died,
and the fact is: AI hasn't managed to produce a computer with the conversational
punch of a toddler.
But the really depressing thing is that though progress toward Turing's
dream is being made, it's coming only on the strength of clever but shallow
trickery. For example, the human creators of artificial agents that compete
in present-day versions of TT know all too well that they have merely
tried to fool those people who interact with their agents into
believing that these agents really have minds. In such scenarios it's
really the human creators against the human judges; the intervening computation
is in many ways simply along for the ride.
It seems to me that a better test is one that insists on a certain restrictive
epistemic relation between a an artificial agent A, its output
o, and the human architect H of S -- a relation which,
roughly speaking, obtains when H cannot account for how A
produced o. I call this test the ``Lovelace Test" in honor of Lady
Lovelace, who believed that only when computers originate things
should they be believed to have minds.
To begin to see how LT works, we start with a scenario that is close
to home for Bringsjord and Ferrucci, given their sustained efforts to
build story generation agents: Assume that Jones, a human AInik, attempts
to build an artificial computational agent A that doesn't engage
in conversation, but rather creates stories -- creates in the Lovelacean
sense that this system originates stories. Assume that Jones
activates A and that a stunningly belletristic story o is
produced. We claim that if Jones cannot explain how o was gemerated
by A, and if Jones has no reason whatever to believe that
A succeeded on the strength of a fluke hardware error, etc. (which
entails that A can produce other equally impressive stories), then
A should at least provisionally be regarded genuinely creative.
An artificial computational agent passes LT if and only if it stands to
its creator as A stands to Jones.
LT relies on the special epistemic relationship that exists between Jones
and A. But `Jones,' like `A,' is of course just an uninformative
variable standing in for any human system designer. This yields the following
rough-and-ready definition.
- DefLT 1
- Artificial agent A, designed by H, passes LT if and
only if
- 1 A outputs o;
- 2 A's outputting o is not the result
of a fluke hardware error, but rather the result of processes A
can repeat;
- 3 H (or someone who knows what H
knows, and has H's resources9) cannot explain how A
produced o.
Notice that LT is actually what might be called a meta-test.
The idea is that this scheme can be deployed for any partcular domain.
If conversation is the kind of behavior wanted, then merely stipulate
that o is an English sentence (or sequence of such sentences) in
the context of a converation (as in, of course, TT). If the production
of a mathematical proof with respect to a given conjecture is what's desired,
then we merely set o to a proof. In light of this, we can focus
LT on the particular kind of interaction appropriate for the digital entertainment
involved.
Obvious questions arise at this point. Three are:
Q1 What resources and knowledge does H have at
his or her disposal?
Q2 What sort of thing would count as a successful explanation?
Q3 How long does H have to cook up the explanation?
The answer to the third question is easy: H can have as long as
he or she likes, within reason. The proffered explanation doesn't have
to come immediately: H can take a month, months, even a year or
two. Anything longer than a couple of years strikes us as perhaps unreasonable.
We realize that these temporal parameters aren't exactly precise, but
then again we should not be held to standards higher than those pressed
against Turing and those who promote his test and variants thereof.10 The general point, obviously,
is that H should have more than ample time to sort things out.
But what about Q1 and Q2? The answer to Q1 is that H is assumed
to have at her disposal knowledge of the architecture of the agent in
question, knowledge of the KB of the agent, knowledge of how the main
functions in the agent are implemented (e.g., how TELL
and ASK are implemented), and so on (recall the summary
of intelligent agents above). H is also assumed to have resources
sufficient to pin down these elements, to ``freeze" them and inspect them,
and so on. I confess that this isn't exactly precise. To clarify things,
I offer an example. This example is also designed to provide an answer
to Q2.
To fix the context for the example, suppose that the output from our
artificial agent A' is a resolution-based proof which settles a
problem which human mathematicians and logicians have grappled unsuccessfully
with for decades. This problem, suppose, is to determine whether or not
some formula can
be derived from some (consistent) axiom set . Imagine that after many
years of fruitless deliberation, a human H' encodes and and gives both to OTTER (a well-known theorem prover;
it's discussed in (Bringsjord & Ferrucci, 2000)), and OTTER
produces a proof showing that this encoding is inconsistent, which establishes
, and leads to an explosion of commentary in the media about ``brilliant"
and ``creative" machines, and so on.11 In this case, A' doesn't
pass LT. This is true because H, knowing the KB, architecture,
and central functions of A' will be able to give a perfect explanation
for the behavior in question. I routinely give explanations of this sort.
The KB is simply the encoding of , the architecture consists in the search algorithms used by OTTER,
and the main functions consist in the rules of inference used in a resolution-based
theorem prover.
Here, now, given the foregoing, is a better definition:
- DefLT 2
-
Artificial agent A, designed by H, passes LT if and
only if
-
- 1 A outputs o;
- 2 A's outputting o is not the result
of a fluke hardware error, but rather the result of processes A
can repeat;
- 3 H (or someone who knows what H
knows, and has H's resources) cannot explain how A
produced o by appeal to A's architecture, knowledge-base,
and core functions.
Today's systems, even those designed to either be, or seem to be, autonomous,
fail LT. These designers can imagine themselves generating the output
in question by merely manipulating symbols in accordance with the knowledge
bases, algorithms, and code in question. We give an example of this kind
of failure, an example that falls rather close to home for me.
The BRUTUS system is designed to appear to be literarily
creative to others. To put the point in the spirit of the Turing
Test, BRUTUS reflects a multi-year attempt to build a system
able to play the short short story game, or S3G for short (Bringsjord, 1998). (See Figure 8 for a picture of S3G.)
Figure 8: The Short Short Story Game, or S3G
for Short.
|
The idea behind S3G is simple. A human and a computer compete
against each other. Both receive one relatively simple sentence, say:
``As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself
transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." (Kafka 1948, p. 67) Both mind and
machine must now fashion a short short story (about 500 words) designed
to be truly interesting; the more literary virtue, the better. The goal
in building BRUTUS, then, is to build an artificial author
able to compete with first-rate human authors in S3G, much
as Deep Blue went head to head with Kasparov.
How does BRUTUS fare? Relative to the goal of passing
S3G, not very well. On the other hand, BRUTUS
can ``author" some rather interesting stories (Bringsjord & Ferrucci, 2000). Note that
we have placed the term `author' in scare quotes. Why? The reason is plain
and simple, and takes us back to Lady Lovelace's objection: BRUTUS
doesn't originate stories. He is capable of generating it because
two humans, Bringsjord and Ferrucci, spent years figuring out how to formalize
a generative capacity sufficient to produce this and other stories, and
they then are able to implement part of this formalization so as to have
a computer produce such prose. This method is known as reverse engineering.
Obviously, with BRUTUS set to A and Bringsjord and
Ferrucci set to H in the definition of LT, the result is that BRUTUS
fails this test.
Let's now give you, briefly, a specific example to make this failure
transparent. BRUTUS is programmed to produce stories that,
are, at least to some degree, bizarre. The reason for this is that reader
response research tells us that readers are engaged by bizarre material.
Now, in BRUTUS, to express the bizarre, modifiers are linked
with objects in frames named bizzaro_modifiers. Consider the
following instance describing the bizzaro modifier bleeding.
What Bringsjord and Ferrucci call literary augmented grammars,
or just a LAGs, may be augmented with constraints to stimulate bizarre
images in the mind of the reader. The following LAG for action analogies,
- BizarreActionAnalogy NP VP like ANP
- NP noun_phrase
- ANP modifier (isa bizzaro_modifier) noun (isa
analog of NP)
in conjunction with bizzaro_modifiers, can be used by BRUTUS
to generate the following sentence.

Sentences like this in output from BRUTUS are therefore
a function of work carried out by (in this case) Ferrucci. Such sentences
do not result from BRUTUS thinking on its own.
What does the Lovelace Test buy us? What role does it play in connection
with challenge C3? The overall idea is this. A truly autonomous virtual
character is an intelligent agent that has those attributes constitutive
of personhood, attributes that include autonomy. Operationalized, this
means that truly autonomous virtual characters would pass LT. But such
agents can't pass LT. Put in the form of an argument, and tied
to the question that gives this paper its title, we have:
The Argument That Worries Me
- 1. Dramatically compelling interactive digital entertainment requires
the presence in such entertainment of virtual persons, and therefore
requires the presence of autonomous virtual characters.
- 2. Autonomous virtual characters would pass the Lovelace Test.
- 3. Autonomous virtual characters would be intelligent agents, in the
technical sense of ``intelligent agents" in use in AI (specifically
in AIMA).
- 4. Intelligent agents fail the Lovelace Test.
- 5. Dramatically compelling interactive digital entertainment isn't
possible.
What should the response be to this argument be? Perhaps you'll need
to think about what your own reaction should be; the point of this paper
is only to place the argument before you. Clearly, the argument is formally
valid, that is, the logic is correct: 5. does follow from the premises.
So to escape the argument, at least one of the premises must be rejected.
My suspicion is that premise 1. is false, but that what's true is
a relative, viz.,
- 1'. Dramatically compelling interactive digital entertainment
requires the presence in such entertainment of seemingly autonomous
virtual characters.
If this is right, those who design and build digital entertainment need,
at bottom, to figure out ingenious ways of fooling players into believing
that virtual characters are, in general, persons (and hence, among other
things, autonomous). The job description for those intent on building
dramatically compelling interative digital entertainment thus calls for
those who can figure out the stimuli that impel gamers to believe they
are interacting with virtual people, and then engineer a system to produce
this stimuli in a principled way. This job description is decidely not
filled by those in game development who have mastered the so-called present-day
``art of character design," which is nicely summarized, e.g., in (Gard, 2000). Why this is so, and
what, as a practical engineering matter, needs to be done to extend present-day
techniques -- well, this will need to wait for another day.
[To
the top of the page]
Notes
* This article was first presented as a paper
at the 2001 Computer Games &
Digital Textualities conference in Copenhagen.
.. games)?1
I'm indebted to Dave Ferrucci, Devin Croak, and Marc Destefano.
... games.2
Playing soccer against someone with Playstation 2 running to a large
plasma display is, for me, fun. Perhaps you, on the other hand, prefer
a current online multi-player game or two.
... agnosticism.3
I have recently argued that deciding whether some story is interesting
is a computationally unsolvable problem. See ``Chapter 5: The Narrative-Based
Refutation of Church's Thesis" in (Bringsjord & Ferrucci, 2000).
... NPCs.4
The connectionist-logicist clash in AI is discussed in: (Bringsjord & Ferrucci, 1998,2000; Bringsjord, 1991). The last of these
publications constitutes an introduction to logicist AI.
... sophisticated5
A character is doxastically sophisticated if it can reason over
its beliefs about the beliefs other characters and human users have
about beliefs, etc.
... cycle.6
The cycle here is strikingly similar to the overall architecture of
cognition described by Pollock (1995).
... calculus,7
The proof is left to sedulous readers.
... viz.,8
The account is streamlined in the interests of space. For example,
because people sleep (and because they can be hypnotized, etc.), a
person would be a creature with the capacity to have properties
like those listed here.
... resources9
For example, the substitute for H might be a scientist who
watched and assimilated what the designers and builders of A
did every step along the way.
... thereof.10
In (Bringsjord, 1995), Bringsjord refutes propositions
associated with TT by assuming for the sake of argument that some reasonable
parameters have been established
for this test. But Turing didn't specify , and neither
have his present-day defenders.
... on.11
For a ``real life" counterpart, we have OTTER's settling
the Robbins Problem, presented as an open question in (Wos, 1996).
- Bringsjord, S. (1991),
-
`Is the connectionist-logicist clash one of ai's wonderful red herrings?',
Journal of Experimental & Theoretical AI 3.4, 319-349.
-
- Bringsjord, S. (1995),
-
Could, how could we tell if, and why should-androids have inner
lives?, in K. Ford, C. Glymour & P. Hayes,
eds, `Android Epistemology', MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 93-122.
- Bringsjord, S. (1997),
-
Abortion: A Dialogue, Hackett, Indianapolis, IN.
- Bringsjord, S. (1998),
-
`Chess is too easy', Technology Review 101(2), 23-28.
- Bringsjord, S. & Ferrucci, D. ( 1998),
-
`Logic and artificial intelligence: Divorced, still married, separated...?',
Minds and Machines 8, 273-308.
- Bringsjord, S. & Ferrucci, D. ( 2000),
-
Artificial Intelligence and Literary Creativity: Inside the
Mind of Brutus, a Storytelling Machine, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah,
NJ.
- Gard, T. (2000),
-
`Building character', Game Developer Magazine 7.5, 28-37.
- Kafka, F. (1948),
-
The metamorphosis, in F. Kafka, t. W. Muir &
E. Muir, eds, `The Penal Colony', Schocken Books, New York, NY.
- Pollock, J. (1995),
-
Cognitive Carpentry: A Blueprint for How to Build a Person,
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
- Russell, S. & Norvig, P. (1994),
-
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Prentice Hall,
Saddle River, NJ.
- Turing, A. (1964),
-
Computing machinery and intelligence, in A. R. Anderson,
ed., `Minds and Machines', Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, pp. 4-30.
- Wos, L. (1996),
-
The Automation of Reasoning: An Experimenter's Notebook with
OTTER Tutorial, Academic Press, San Diego, CA.
|
|


Diceware is used to create cryptographically strong passphrases. It is based on the principle that the truly random selection, based on rolls of dice, of words in a wordlist can result in easily memorable passwords that are also extremely resistant to attack by even the most powerful adversaries. Passwords that are six words or longer are thought to be safe for high security applications.
There are words in your password, which is ~
bits of entropy (
~12.92 bits/word
and ~5.16/symbol
).
That many words equates to an effective keyspace of ~ possible keys (
(7776^words)/2
which is 50% of the total key space since on average a key will be found in that reduced keyspace). Conservatively assuming an adversary can guess passwords at the rate of a trillion () keys/second, as Edward Snowden claims, an exhaustive brute-force search on half the total keyspace might take:
~ seconds
~ minutes
~ hours
~ days
~ years
~ x avg. lifespan
~ millenia
~ x age Universe
It's really simple. Just click on one of the random passphrase generator buttons above. This will allow you to generate passphrases that are 4,5,6,7, or 8 words long. Clicking any of these again will generate a totally new passphrase and your will never see the previous one again.
At any time you can click on the + Word
or + Symbol
buttons to add them to the existing passphrase.
Lastly, you can manually roll real dice (two or five dice rolls for each symbol or word) and enter the results of each set of rolls in the form and hit the return/enter key to add that word to your passphrase.
Each word or symbol displayed will also be shown with its index number that was used to look it up in the diceware word list in small text.
You can copy the generated passphrase from the copyable string on the page. You should store it somewhere safe and secure. You might want to write it down and refer to the written version until you can remember it which shouldn't take long.
Reload or close the browser tab once you are done so others can't discover your passphrase.
window.crypto.getRandomValues()
CSPRNG that ships with modern browsers to get random bytes is used. The Bytes output from the RNG are converted to die rolls with (BYTE % 6) + 1
. You can learn more about window.crypto.getRandomValues()
and make your own determination. Many cryptographic library authors are now targeting the browser environment and most are using this API as their primary source of entropy.
Math.random()
as the source of random numbers which is not secure. Additionally this page's JavaScript and CSS files are totally self-contained and the site itself is served over a known good TLS connection which helps prevent MITM attacks on the code or the wordlists.
You should ensure that:
Entropy is a measure of the uncertainty or randomness of a system. The concept is a difficult one to grasp fully and is confusing, even to experts. Strictly speaking, any given passphrase has an entropy of zero because it is already chosen. It is the method you use to randomly select your passphrase that has entropy. Entropy tells how hard it will be to guess the passphrase itself even if an attacker knows the method you used to select your passphrase. A passphrase is more secure if it is selected using a method that has more entropy.
Entropy is measured in bits. The outcome of a single coin toss -- "heads or tails" -- has one bit of entropy.
Each standard Diceware word is assigned ~12.92 bits of entropy (Math.log2(7776)
), each special character added is ~5.16 bits (Math.log2(36)
). The total is the sum of the entropy in each full word or special character.
Yes! The source code is available on Github. Its a simple static HTML application and you can clone and run it by opening the index.html
file in your browser. When run locally it should word when your computer is completely offline.
Yes, I believe so.


Fearless Wallet
Effective Date: 2021-02-02
The Fearless Wallet app is built as an app by SORAMITSU, a company incorporated under the Japanese law, with a head office registered at Jingumae Tower Building, Jingumae 1-5-8, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 1500001, Japan. For users in the European Economic Area (EEA), SORAMITSU is represented by its Switzerland entity, Soramitsu Helvetia AG, a company incorporated under the Switzerland law, with an office registered at Dammstrasse 16, 6300 Zug, Swizerland.
This service is provided by SORAMITSU at no cost and is intended for use as is. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, 'we', 'us' and 'our' refers to SORAMITSU, and 'you' refers to you, the user of the Services.
This page is used to inform visitors regarding our policies with the collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information if anyone decided to use our Service.
If you choose to use our Service, then you agree to the collection and use of information in relation to this policy. We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy.
The terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, which is accessible at Fearless Wallet unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy.
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We want to inform you that whenever you use our Service, in a case of an error in the app we collect data and information (through third party products) on your phone called Log Data. This Log Data may include information such as your device Internet Protocol ("IP") address, device name, operating system version, the configuration of the app when utilizing our Service, the time and date of your use of the Service, and other statistics. Log Data will be processed securely in compliance with all relevant regulations, and will not be sold or otherwise transferred to third parties without your explicit consent.
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We value your trust in providing us your Personal Information, thus we are striving to use commercially acceptable means of protecting it. But remember that no method of transmission over the internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure and reliable, and we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
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These Services do not address anyone under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from people under 18. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so that we will be able to do necessary actions.
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. But when we do, we'll let you know one way or another. Sometimes, we'll let you know by revising the date at the top of the Privacy Policy that's available on our website and mobile application. Other times, we may provide you with an in-app notification.
If you have any questions or suggestions about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us at<EMAIL_ADDRESS>The Data Controller, Data Processor, and Data Protection Officer Are:
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Telefax: +41 (0)58 465 99 96


The Initialize method is used to initialize a BadgeBComponent in code. Returns itself for method chaining.
Initialize
BadgeBComponent
{{code.initialize}}
The setValue method is used to set the value of the badge.
setValue


The work of the KDE community can be measured in the following figures: KDE is one of the largest active Free Software communities. More than 1800 contributors participate in developing KDE software.About 20 new developers contribute their first code each month. KDE Software consists of over 6 million lines of code (not including Qt). KDE Software is translated in over 108 languages. KDE Software is available on more than 114 official FTP mirrors in over 34 countries. A read-only mirror of all repositories can be found on Github.
Whether you're a student looking to showcase your work, a professional looking to attract clients, or a graphic artist looking to share your projects, this template is the perfect starting point!
K Desktop Environment (KDE) was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, who was then a student at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. At the time, he was troubled by certain aspects of the Unix desktop. Among his concerns was that none of the applications looked, felt, or worked alike. He proposed the creation of not merely a set of applications but a desktop environment in which users could expect things to look, feel, and work consistently. He also wanted to make this desktop easy to use; one of his complaints about desktop applications of the time was that it is too complicated for end users. His initial Usenet post spurred a lot of interest, and the KDE project was born. The name KDE was intended as a wordplay on the existing Common Desktop Environment, available for Unix systems. CDE was an X11-based user environment jointly developed by HP, IBM, and Sun through the X/Open consortium, with an interface and productivity tools based on the Motif graphical widget toolkit. It was supposed to be an intuitively easy-to-use desktop computer environment. The K was originally suggested to stand for "Kool", but it was quickly decided that the K should stand for nothing in particular. Therefore, the KDE initialism expanded to "K Desktop Environment" before it was dropped altogether in favor of KDE = Community due to the rebranding effort.
Close ProjectThe KDE community’s mascot is a green dragon named Konqi.Konqi has a girlfriend named Katie. Konqi and Katie made their costumed appearance at the KDE 4.0 Release Event and Camp KDE 2010. Konqi also appears on the KDE software's about dialog. Kandalf the wizard was the former mascot for the KDE community during its 1.x and 2.x versions, but he was dropped owing to copyright issues (his resemblance to Gandalf). Konqi's appearance was officially redesigned with the coming of Plasma 5, with Tyson Tan's entry (seen on the right) winning the redesign competition on the KDE Forums. Close Project
Akademy is the annual world summit, held each summer at varying venues in Europe.[61] The primary goals of Akademy are to act as a community building event, to communicate the achievements of community, and to provide a platform for collaboration with community and industry partners. Secondary goals are to engage local people, and to provide space for getting together to write code. KDE e.V. assist with procedures, advice and organization. Akademy including conference, KDE e.V. general assembly, marathon coding sessions, BOFs (birds of a feather sessions) and social program. BOFs are meet to discuss specific sub-projects or issues.[62] The KDE community held KDE One that was first conference in Arnsberg, Germany in 1997 to discuss the first KDE release. Initially, each conference was numbered after the release, and not regular held. Since 2003 the conferences were held once a year. And they were named Akademy since 2004. The yearly Akademy conference gives Akademy Awards, are awards that the KDE community gives to KDE contributors. Their purpose is to recognize outstanding contribution to KDE. There are three awards, best application, best non-application and jury's award. As always the winners are chosen by the winners from the previous year.[63] First winners received a framed picture of Konqi signed by all attending KDE developers.
Close Project


Hanging With Joe Rogan Again? Social Media Users are Stumped by Elon Musk’s Mysterious Tweet
On 13 November, Tesla’s CEO said the German capital will host the company’s first major European factory as Tesla moves forward with its expansion plans, now, however, it seems that the tech visionary is more interested in other things, like urban planning for fictional realms.
Business and engineering maverick Elon Musk has left netizens bewildered following a tweet about the gentrification of Mordor, the fictional realm and home of the villain Sauron in Tolkien’s saga Lord of the Rings. The 48-year-old entrepreneur put up a poll on the social media platform asking users two to choose between a "yes" and "no" option.
Musk frequently entertains his huge army of followers, posting jokes and memes, and sending out teasers for his companies projects. He is also no stranger to posting enigmatic tweets, but this one has really baffled netizens…
Some users willingly backed the idea of gentrifying the mountainous realm thinking that Musk’s idea would be a success.
The opponents of gentrification, which can force low income residents out of a neighbourhood due to increased costs of living, were shocked to the roots of their souls by Musk’s proposition…
Many users found the tech visionary's idea interesting and came up with suggestions on how to improve Mordor.
Still others contended that the gentrification of Mordor would be impossible.
Well, as for the vote itself, at the moment 77 percent back the idea of gentrification of Mordor while 23 percent oppose it.


Welcome to the Floodplain
Gravel Mine Restoration Tool.
This tool facilitates decision making and informs resource investments
for the restoration of floodplain mining sites. Get started with
these three steps—you can save, edit, and share your work at any time.


- ccplot(1)
- ccplot(1)
NAME
ccplot
- CloudSat and CALIPSO plotting tool
SYNOPSIS
ccplot
[-v
] [-a
ratio] [-c
file] [-d
dpi] [-m
band] [-o
file] [-p
proj[:projopts]] [-r
radius] [-x
extent] [-y
extent] [-z
options] type file...
ccplot
-i
file
ccplot
-h
ccplot
-V
DESCRIPTION
ccplot is a command-line program for producing plots from CloudSat, CALIPSO
and MODIS product files.
The program reads data from file, and produces an image file. Dataset
to be plotted is determined by type:
cloudsat-reflec
- CloudSat Reflectivity Factor
calipso532
- CALIPSO L1B Total Attenuated Backscatter 532nm
calipso532p
- CALIPSO L1B Perpendicular Attenuated Backscatter 532nm
calipso1064
- CALIPSO L1B Attenuated Backscatter 1064nm
calipso-cratio
- CALIPSO L1B Attenuated Color Ratio 1064nm/532nm
calipso-dratio
- CALIPSO L1B Depolarization Ratio
calipso532-layer
- CALIPSO L2 Integrated Attenuated Backscatter 532nm
calipso1064-layer
- CALIPSO L2 Integrated Attenuated Backscatter 1064nm
calipso-cratio-layer
- CALIPSO L2 Integrated Attenuated Total Color Ratio 1064nm/532nm
calipso-dratio-layer
- CALIPSO L2 Integrated Volume Depolarization Ratio
calipso-temperature-layer
- CALIPSO L2 Midlayer Temperature
orbit
- Map of the globe showing CALIPSO or CloudSat trajectory,
optionally superimposed on MODIS swath
(if a MODIS HDF product is supplied as the first file).
orbit-clipped
- The same as
orbit
, but clipped to the area where MODIS data
is available.
OPTIONS
-
-a
ratio
- Aspect ratio of profile and layer products in km horizontal per km
vertical. Default: 14.0.
-
-c
file
- Colormap definition file (.cmap).
Apart from an absolute path, paths relative to
CCPLOT_CMAP_PATH
environment variable are also recognized, and take precedence over
paths relative to the current working directory.
See Chapter 6 of Kuma (2010) for more information about the format
of cmap files.
-
-d
dpi
- DPI (Dots Per Inch) of the output image file.
-
-m
band
- MODIS band specifier in the format
r
number for reflective bands,
and x
number for radiation bands, where number is band number.
-
-o
file
- Output image file. Format is determined by extension: SVG (.svg),
PNG (.png), PDF (.pdf), EPS (.eps) and PS (.ps).
Default: ccplot.png.
-
-p
proj[:projopts]
- Projection and projection options. Applies to
orbit
and orbit-clipped
plots.
-p help
prints a list of available projections.
projopts are projection-specific options, specified as a comma-seperated
list of key=
value pairs:
-
cutoff
=latitude
- Cut-off latitude (Lambert conformal projection).
-
h
=height
- Satellite height (m) (geostationary projection).
-
k_0
=scale-factor
- Scale factor.
-
lat_0
=latitude
- Central latitude.
-
lat_1
=latitude
- First standard parallel.
-
lat_2
=latitude
- Second standard parallel.
-
lat_ts
=latitude
- Latitude of true scale.
-
o_lat_p
=latitude
- Pole latitude (rotated pole projection).
-
o_lon_p
=longitude
- Central rotated longitude (rotated pole projection).
-
sweep
=axis
- Sweep axis: "x" or "y" (geostationary projection).
-
zone
=zone
- UTM zone (1 to 60).
longitude is in the format numberE
|W
(East or West).
latitude is in the format numberS
|N
(South or North).
number is a positive decimal number in degrees.
-
-r
radius
- Interpolation radius in pixels. In profile products radius specifies
vertical extent which a data point is mapped onto. If such vertical
regions of two data points overlap value is determined by averaging
with a weight coefficient of 1 over distance squared.
The same holds for swath products, but here radius specifies a square.
If radius is chosen too small relative to dpi, data will be plotted
sparsely on the image.
Defaults to 3 for swath plots. For profile products a sensible
value is chosen automatically depending on resolution.
-v
- Verbose mode.
-V
- Print version information and exit.
-
-x
extent
- Horizontal extent to be plotted. extent can be specified in a number of
formats depending on the plot type.
For profile and layer products extent can be one of:
-
x1..x2
- Plot data between ray x1 and x2.
-
hour1:min1[:sec1]..hour2:min2[:sec2]
- Plot data in time interval (UTC).
- +|-[hour:]min:sec..+|-[hour:]min:sec
- Plot data in time interval relative to the beginning (+) or end (-)
of the granule.
For swath products extent can be one of:
-
x1..x2,y1..y2
- Plot data between scanlines x1 and x2 (along-track),
and samples y1 and y2 (across-track).
-
lon1..lon2,lat1..lat2
- Plot data inside geographical region between latitude lat1 and lat2
and longitude lon1 and lon2.
Longitude is in the format numberE
|W
(East or West).
Latitude is in the format numberS
|N
(South or North).
number is a positive decimal number in degrees.
-
-y
extent
- Vertical extent of profile plots in the format y1..y2,
where y1 and y2 are the lower and upper boundary (resp.) in meters above
sea level.
-
-z
options
- Miscellaneous formatting options. options is a comma-separated list of
key
=
value pairs.
Some options accept a list of values seperated by colon in the format
key=value1:value2[:value]... .
-z help
prints a list of all options.
Available common options:
cbfontsize
- Color bar font size. Default: 8.
cbspacing
- Spacing between axes and color bar. Default: 0.4.
drawelev
- Draw surface elevation line (CALIPSO). Default: 1.
elevlw
- Surface elevation line width. Default: 0.5.
elevcolor
- Surface elevation line color. Default: #FF0000.
fontsize
- Font size. Default: 10.
padding
- Padding around axes and color bar in inches. Default: 1.
plotheight
- Plot height in inches. Default: 6.
title
- Figure title. Default: automatic.
Orbit plots support additional options:
coastlinescolor
- Coastlines color. Default: #46396D.
coastlineslw
- Coastlines line width. Default: 0.4.
countriescolor
- Countries outlines color. Default: #46396D.
countrieslw
- Countries outlines line width. Default: 0.2.
drawcoastlines
- Draw coastlines. Default: 1.
drawcountries
- Draw countries outlines. Default: 1.
drawlakes
- Draw lakes. Default: 1.
drawlsmask
- Draw land-sea mask. Default: 1.
drawmeridians
- Draw meridians. Default: 1.
drawminormeridians
- Draw meridians. Default: 1.
drawminorparallels
- Draw minor parallels. Default: 1.
drawparallels
- Draw parallels. Default: 1.
landcolor
- Land color. Default: #E9E4F7.
majormeridianscolor
- Major meridians color. Default: #000000.
majormeridianslw
- Major meridians line width. Default: 0.3.
majorparallelscolor
- Major parallels line color. Default: #000000.
majorparallelslw
- Major parallels line width. Default: 0.3.
mapres
- Map resolution: auto (automatic), 10m (1:10m) 50m (1:50m),
110m (1:110m). Default: auto.
meridiansbase
- Meridians base, or 0 for automatic. Default: 0.
minormeridianscolor
- Minor meridians color. Default: #000000.
minormeridianslw
- Minor meridians line width. Default: 0.1.
minorparallelscolor
- Minor parallels color. Default: #000000.
minorparallelslw
- Minor parallels line width. Default: 0.1.
nminormeridians
- Number of minor meridians between two major maridians, or 0 for
automatic. Default: 0.
nminorparallels
- Number of minor parallels between two major parallels, or 0 for
automatic. Default: 0.
parallelsbase
- Parallels base, or 0 for automatic. Default: 0.
trajcolors
- List of trajectory colors. Default: #FF0000:#0000FF:#00FF00.
trajlws
- List of trajectory line widths. Default: 0.5.
trajnminortics
- Number of minor ticks between adjecent major ticks, or -1 for
automatic selection. Default: -1.
trajticks
- Base for trajectory major ticks in seconds, or -1 for automatic
selection. Default: -1.
watercolor
- Water color. Default: #FFFFFF.
EXAMPLES
Plot the first 1000 rays of CloudSat Reflectivity Factor with
colormap cloudsat-reflec.cmap into cloudsat-reflec.png:
ccplot -x 0..1000 -c cloudsat-reflectivity.cmap -o cloudsat-reflec.png cloudsat-reflec<PHONE_NUMBER>641_01550_CS_2B-GEOPROF_GRANULE_P_R03_E01.hdf
Plot the first minute of CALIPSO Total Attenuated Backscatter 532nm
between altitude 0 and 20 km with colormap calipso-backscatter.cmap
into calipso532.png:
ccplot -y 0..20000 -x +0:00..+1:00 -c calipso-backscatter.cmap -o calipso532.png calipso532 CAL_LID_L1-Prov-V2-01.2006-07-06T19-50-51ZN.hdf
Plot CALIPSO trajectory superimposed on Aqua MODIS
band 31 radiance with colormap modis-temperature.cmap into
orbit-calipso.png:
ccplot -m x31 -c modis-temperature.cmap -p tmerc -o orbit-calipso.png orbit-clipped MYD021KM.A2006224.1945.005.2007140113559.hdf CAL_LID_L1-Prov-V2-01.2006-07-06T19-50-51ZN.hdf
ENVIRONMENT
CCPLOT_CMAP_PATH
- Colon-separated list of search paths of colormap files.
FILES
/usr/share/ccplot/cmap/*
- Stock colormap files.
AUTHOR
ccplot
was written by Peter Kuma.
REFERENCES
Kuma, P. (2010). Visualising Data from CloudSat and CALIPSO Satellites,
Bachelor's thesis. Comenius University, Bratisava, Slovakia.
CloudSat Standard Data Products Handbook
CALIPSO Data Products Catalog Release 2.4
MODIS Level 1B Product User's Guide
KNOWN ISSUES
Plot size is limited to 32767 pixels.


"ANGER "the emotion of instant displeasure on account of something evil that presents itself to our view. In itself it is an original susceptibility of our nature, just as love is, and is not necessarily sinful. It may, however, become sinful when causeless, or excessive, or protracted (Matthew 5:22; Ephesians 4:26; Colossians 3:8). As ascribed to God, it merely denotes his displeasure with sin and with sinners (Psalm 7:11).
"ANGER "the emotion of instant displeasure on account of something evil that presents itself to our view. In itself it is an original susceptibility of our nature, just as love is, and is not necessarily sinful. It may, however, become sinful when causeless, or excessive, or protracted (Matthew 5:22; Ephesians 4:26; Colossians 3:8). As ascribed to God, it merely denotes his displeasure with sin and with sinners (Psalm 7:11).


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Fight of the Day: Josh Koscheck vs. Matt Hughes
by Luke Irwin
Date: September 24, 2011
Card: UFC 135
Championship(s):
Venue: Pepsi Center
Location: Denver, Colorado
Date: September 24, 2011
Card: UFC 135
Championship(s):
Venue: Pepsi Center
Location: Denver, Colorado


With silicon valley being one of the top metro areas for technology and innovation, it's no secret that the jobs choices here are endless in the tech field! Headquartered here are major companies like, Apple, Alphabet-formally known as Google, Wells fargo, Yahoo, Visa, PlayStation and many, many more. About 285 of every 1,000 workers in silicon valley are in the tech field, that's larger than any metro area in the U.S. Almost 20% of jobs in the valley are in the tech field. With the help of glassdoor reports I have highlighted some of the Valley's highest paying companies to work for.
Genentech was founded over 40 years ago, and is based in South San Francisco. This biotech and pharmaceutical company generates over $10 billion a year. As of 2018, Genentech ranked No. 2 on a list of the most trustworthy pharma companies. A typical employee make about $135,000 a year.
Based in Santa Clara, the computer company's invention of the Graphics Processing Unit advanced the PC gaming market and "modern computer graphics." Today, the company employs over 10,000 people and boasts an annual revenue between $5 and $10 billion. The average yearly compensation is approximatley $170,068.
AppDynamics is an application performance management and IT operations analytics company based in San Francisco, California. The company focuses on managing the performance and availability of applications across cloud computing environments as well as inside the data center. Working you here you can expect an average of anywhere between 122,000-182,000.


WITNESS LIST Human Services Committee February 12, 2001-2:00P HB 102 For: Bower, Bruce (Texas Legal Services Center) Dieter, Alison (Self and Texas Gray Panthers) Hagert, Celia (Center for Public Policy Priorities) On: Phillips, Tom (DHS) Registering, but not testifying: For: Hernandez, Leslie (National Assoc. of Social Workers/Texas) HB 154 For: Higgins, Carlos (TX Silver-Haired Legislature) Holtermann, John (TX Silver-Haired Legislature) Registering, but not testifying: For: Aguirre, Teresa (TX Asoc. of Homes and Services for the Aging) Bower, Bruce (TX Senior Advocacy Cooalition) Dieter, Alison (Self and Texas Gray Panthers) Graves, Tim (TX Health Care Assoc.) Hernandez, Leslie (National Association of Social Workers/TX) Jones, Susan (TX Hospital Association) Marshall, Susan (The Arc of Texas) HB 479 For: Bower, Bruce (TX Senior Advocacy Coalition) Dieter, Alison (TX Gray Panthers) Farzam, Farnam H. (TX Dental Association) Hardy, Alan (AARP) Hayes, Robin (TX Health Care Assoc.) Willis, John F. (TX Department of Aging/Ombudsman Program) Registering, but not testifying: For: Aguirre, Teresa (TX Assoc. of Homes and Services for the Aging) Ferris, Beth (TX Advocates for Nursing Home Residents) Hernandez, Leslie (Natl. Assoc. of Social Workers/TX) Jenkins, Clay (Brown Dental Health) Noches, Ramon C. (Self) Oliver, Lawrence (Mobile Dental Care P.A.) Riddering, Hannah (Self and TX Natl. Org. for Women) Rushing, Linda (TX Conference of Catholic Health Facilities) Spillar, Lee (Self and Researcher, Citizens Commission on Human Rights) Wood, Norma (Self and AARP) HB 480 For: Graves, Tim (TX Health Care Assoc.) Settle, Randall H. (Century Care) Registering, but not testifying: For: Aguirre, Teresa (TX Assoc. of Homes and Services for the Aging) Bower, Bruce (TX Senior Advocacy Coalition) Ferris, Beth (TX Advocates for Nursing Home Residents) Hernandez, Leslie (Natl. Assoc. of Social Workers/TX) Rich, Sid (TX Assoc. of Residential Care Communities) Spiller, Lee (Self) HB 481 For: Bower, Bruce (TX Senior Advocacy Coalition) Graves, Tim (Texas Health Care Assoc.) Hooser, Greg (Private Providers Assoc. of Texas) Registering, but not testifying: For: Aguirre, Teresa (TX Assoc. for Homes and Services for the Aging) Dieter, Alison (TX Gray Panthers) Kelemen, George (Self and AARP) Rich, Sid (TX Assoc. of Residential Care Communities) HB 482 For: Bower, Bruce (TX Senior Advocacy Coalition) Chessen, Nancy (Self and twin daughters Kerrie and Kudra Deason) Gadberry, Gavin (TX Health Care Association) Galow, Jerry (Self) Hernandez, Leslie (Natl. Assoc. of Social Workers/TX) Hooser, Greg (Private Providers Assocation of TX) Registering, but not testifying: For: Aguirre, Teresa (TX Assoc. of Homes and Services for the Aging) Marshall, Susan (The Arc of Texas) Smith, Carole (Private Providers Association of TX) Spiller, Lee (Self) HB 483 Registering, but not testifying: For: Bower, Bruce (TX Senior Advoccy Coalition) Marshall, Susan (The Arc of Texas) Riddering, Hannah (Self) HB 986 For: Higgins, Carlos (TX Silver-Haired Legislature) Holtermann, John (TX Silver-Haired Legislature) Registering, but not testifying: For: Aguirre, Teresa (TX Assoc. of Homes and Services for the Aging) Bower, Bruce (TX Senior Advocacy Coalition) Ferris, Beth (TX Advocates for Nursing Home Residents) Graves, Tim (TX Health Care Association) Marshall, Susan (The Arc of Texas) Rushing, Linda (TX Catholic Conference) HB 1007 For: Bower, Bruce (TX Senior Advocacy Coalition) Buchanan, Bree (TX Council on Family Violence) Castillo, Patricia S. (The P.E.A.C.E. Initiative/Benedictine Resource Center) Cole, Pat (National Training Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence) Gerson, Rhonda (Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse) Registering, but not testifying: For: Dieter, Alison (TX Gray Panthers) Hernandez, Leslie (National Assoc. of Social Workers/TX) Ramsey, Lesley (Self) Riddering, Hannah (TX National Organization for Women)


Try to draw line, square, rectangle, zigzag, triangle, equilateral triangle, check or circle.
Result:


Video footage of Syrian troops expanding control over new sites in northeast Syria
by News DeskBEIRUT, LEBANON (4:30 P.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) recently established control over several new areas in northeastern Syria after successfully fending off a number of militant attacks.
In a new video posted on Friday, the Syrian Arab Army can be seen expanding their presence in the Tal Tamr countryside after advancing 10km west of the town:


House of Fraser is selling personalised Cadbury selection boxes for Christmas
A new secret Santa workshop at House of Fraser's Oxford Street store lets chocolate lovers personalise a Cadbury selection box - just in time for Christmas
by Melisha Kaur, https://www.mirror.co.uk/authors/melisha-kaur/If you need a Christmas gift for a sweet-toothed loved one, look no further than House of Fraser .
Just in time for the festive season, the department store has teamed up with chocolate giant Cadbury to launch a new secret Santa workshop this week.
The Cadbury workshop will be located on the fourth floor of House of Fraser's Oxford Street branch and is open from Thursday, November 21st until Christmas eve.
It gives shoppers the chance to personalise a selection box with a name of their chouse on the front. Even better, they'll also get to choose the seven chocolate treats that go inside.
Sadly, no other House of Fraser stores will be running the workshop - but you can find a huge selection of chocolate gifts at most branches and online at houseoffraser.com .
Entry to the festive workshop is free, but it costs £10 to personalise a selection box.
Shoppers can find a selection of Cadbury's classic favourites like the Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut, along with new festive offerings including the Dairy Milk Orange Snowman.
You can check the opening times of House of Fraser Oxford Street online .
Meanwhile, Morrisons has cut the price of various Cadbury items - including a Chocolate Selection Stocking (now £2, was £3) and a Drinking Chocolate Hot Chocolate Tub (now £2, was £2).
Looking for chocolate advent calendars? See our roundup of the best Christmas chocolate advent calendars for 2019 worth gorging on this December.
Debenhams recently started selling personalised Nutella jars in time for Christmas - and prices start from £4.


Flight is cool. Kites are cool. So it stands to reason that flying on kites would be even cooler. This trope is when flight is provided by riding a giant kite.
While the trope is usually seen as used by ninjas, that doesn't limit examples to just when it's used by them.
Subtrope of Flight. Related to Rule of Cool. Not to be confused with kiting.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Yu-Gi-Oh!. The anime-exclusive ninja duelist Jean Claude Magnum uses a magic card called "Great Kite of Ninja" to let one of his Ninjas fly. After he loses, an actor in a costume of the monster uses an actual giant kite to kidnap his opponent.
- There was an episode of Digimon Adventure 02 where Shurimon ties himself to a kite and introduces himself to a villain who wishes to fight him whilst airborne and stuck to the kite.
- In one episode of Maicchingu Machiko-sensei, one of the main students and a teacher end up flying on a giant kite by accident and eventually fall into a sauna where the eponymous Ms. Machiko is bathing (of course).
- Bleach. In anime episode 355 Izuru Kira arranges a kite-flying contest between the Soul Reaper squads. As the contest gets competitive, Ikkaku Madarame and Captain Soi Fon fly using their squads' kites. As they fight with each other Izuru Kira comes flying in on his own kite to break it up but crashes.
- The current page image is E-91 Lady Ninja, one of Dr. Eggman's Robots of the Week in Sonic X. When Rouge the Bat tries to fly off with a Chaos Emerald, Lady Ninja extends the kite out of her back to give chase.
Comicbooks
- Part of the M.O. of Kite-Man, a minor member of Batman's Rogues Gallery.
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: In the climax of volume 1, Fu Manchu's men use war kites to fly up to Moriarty's airship for a counterattack.
Literature
- In Ben and Me, Ben rigs a platform on his kite for Amos and a zipline he can ride down, which Amos enjoys immensely. As Ben begins to study electricity, he hints multiple times that Amos riding on the kite during a thunderstorm would greatly benefit his study. Amos declines. However, the day Franklin "discovers" electricity, he sends Amos up in the kite like usual and Amos doesn't find out till too late that he's removed the zipline.
- In David Brin's The Practice Effect, someone carrying a large umbrella was caught in a powerful storm, which gave him the brainstorm for a kite. For a long time, tethered kites with soldiers riding them were used for patrol and defense, then another genius had a lucky/unlucky break when his tether broke and he invented a hang-glider, which became the word in advanced warfare, until Wizard Nuel came from a distant land...
- The Kite Rider, a children's story set during China's Song dynasty and the reign of Kublai Khan. Before setting out on a voyage a ship's crew "tests the wind" by sending a kite with a man attached into the air. The man dies during the flight and his soul goes into the clouds.
- Rowan of Rin: The Forerunners of the Travellers use large silken kites to fly ahead of the rest of the tribe and warn of potential dangers, the cover depicts them being shaped like gliders.
- In Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts Tom Swift Jr. invents a "space kite" which uses cosmic rays as the "wind" and a gravity accelerator as the virtual string to keep it tethered to a body (planet, asteroid, etc.). It's designed for two people to be in. He gets this idea from watching some kids fly a regular kite.
- In King and Emperor the Waymen experiment with manned kites, mostly crewed by young boys. The kite crews wear a winged pendant for Volund, smith of the gods who made wings to fly away from his captors. Shef makes a kite for himself as well, but doesn't fly it very well, to his eventual detriment.
Films — Live-Action
- In Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Japanese pilot Yamamoto is introduced being strapped to a kite and having to be pulled back on the ground to check the news of the big international air race between London and Paris.
- An ewok in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi uses a kite to attack the AT-ST Walkers from above.
- The third Swordsman film, The East is Red, has a scene where a couple of samurai launch an aerial assault while on kites.
Live-Action TV
- In Shuriken Sentai Ninninger, the team can use their Five Elements Shurikens' Wood technique to generate a kite for this very purpose. AoNinger's dragon mecha is also summoned to the battlefield by kite. As their name suggests, these are examples of the ninja application of this trope.
Tabletop Games
- The semi-nomadic Yellow-Red Chanari of Rocket Age's Mars use one man gliders, which give their highland fortresses the impression of being nests for great flying animals.
Video Games
- World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria: Many of the flight masters on Pandaria send you aloft on ornate Pandaren kites that can cross the entire continent. Such kites are available as flying mounts as well.
- Final Fantasy IV: The After Years has Zangetsu the ninja, who uses the ability "Human Kite" to fly into the air and then dive down to attack enemies.
- Kid Niki Radical Ninja has enemy ninjas riding on kites.
 To no-one's surprise but hers, the attempt fails and she would have face-planted several hundred feet down if not for Hanzo.
- The Legend of the Mystical Ninja has a goofy cutscene with Dr. Yang (Ebisumaru) flying on a kite. The Boss Battle against Sasuke begins with him deploying a group of ninjas from a giant kite, then he brings the kite closer as the battlefield for the final phase.
- In Shinobi III: The Ninja Master, Round 2 begins with you riding a horse in the foreground while ninjas dismount kites flying in the background and run after you.
- In Ninja Spirit, the Stage 5 Boss Battle is with the Tribe of the Nine Wind Demons, all nine of whom are arranged on a giant flying kite emblazoned with the kanji 影 ("shadow"). Smaller kites carrying individual enemy ninja appear in the following stage.
- In the Famicom Platform Game Time Zone, the 1632 world ends with a rooftop Boss Battle against a ninja on a kite.
- The purple Imps in Ōkami use this technique. They can be knocked off them with Galestorm.
- In Wii Play: Motion, the second, ninja-themed level of Trigger Twist has some of the ninjas approach the player with this technique.
- The second level of Wrath of the Black Manta has the player fly a kite through an Unexpected Shmup Level segment where the Black Manta shoots down other ninjas flying kites.
Western Animation
- The Famous Studios cartoon "Suddenly It's Spring" from 1944 has Raggedy Ann dangle from a kite's tail in order to speak with Mister Sun.
- An aggressive bulldog climbs up the tether to an airborne kite in Tex Avery's cartoon "Ventriloquist Cat" from 1950. The trickster cat throws his voice at the kite to make the bulldog think he's hiding there.
- In the CatDog episode "Hail The Great Meow-Woof", the titular duo travel to a jungle island by use of a giant kite, where they meet up with Rancid Rabbit who is acting as the king of said island.
- In Toy Story 3, Woody gets out of Sunnyside Daycare by riding a kite.
- In the Disney short Ben and Me, Amos Mouse rides in a pocket on Benjamin Franklin's kite on the fateful day that Ben discovers electricity.
- In T.U.F.F. Puppy, Bird Brain's ultimate goal is to learn how to fly. In the episode that introduces his character, he is briefly seen flying by riding a $4.00 kite.
- The Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers episode "Kiwi's Big Adventure" has the Rangers attempt to recover the Ranger plane from a tribe of flightless kiwis, who think it will somehow bestow its power of flight upon them. Ultimately, the Rangers outfit the kiwis with box kites, at one kiwi per kite, which allows them to "fly" above the treetops.
- Franklin. In "Franklin and Snail's Dream," Snail's dream is to fly, and among the many different ways Franklin tries to help Snail achieve his dream is by placing him in a plastic cup that is attached to a kite, much to Beaver's dismiss, as she worries Snail would fall out and crack his shell.
- Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner: Wile E. Coyote once tried to fly by running off a cliff while holding a kite. It went as well as you'd expect.
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode, "The Sponge Who Could Fly", SpongeBob wants to learn how to fly just like the Jellyfish. One of his attempts is to tie himself to a kite pulled by Patrick riding a bicycle. At first, this attempt works, but eventually, the kite breaks and makes SpongeBob the laughingstock of Bikini Bottom as a result.
- The The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh episode "Up, Up And Awry" focused on Pooh wanting to fly. Among his attempts to do so, he ties himself to a kite that is to be pulled by Eeyore riding on a tricycle, while Rabbit, Tigger, and Piglet try to stop Pooh from trying to fly.
- G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero occasionally showed the Joes and Cobras using hang gliders, though Cobra quickly got an upgrade with the rigid, jet-powered C.L.A.W. gliders.
- House of Mouse: In the Silly Symphony short "Donald's Valentine Dollar", Donald chases an airborne dollar bill into a park and gets wrapped up in a butterfly kite, which he uses as wings to try and catch the dollar and also do battle with his nephews' novelty kites. He eventually gets caught in a storm and gets struck by lightning, incinerating his wings.
Real Life
- Man-Lifting Kites
- Essentially, this is just hang-gliding.