My Recent Web Travels Roundup III

Sorry for the delay to anyone who has been reading this blog. I've been unemployed and looking for work for the last little while and its had to take precedence over my need to shoot up on info.


Over at Geekologie there is this article about surgeons implanting retinal chips for the blind. Seems like this technology has gone through the 'promise dip' and is now emerging into more mainstream use

Along the same lines, Slate has an article about the US Armed forces declaration that they will actively pursue regenerative medicine under the AFRIM program. Regenerative medicine as in "Grow your arm back". This could be good and bad, but I wonder if you could get an extra arm?

Researchers from the University of Bristol have reported a breakthrough in the understanding of how visual memory works at a chemical level. They've discovered that by interfering with certain molecular mechanisms involved in synaptic plasticity, experimental rats were unable to act on visual memories. This research presages a molecular understanding of all memory, and furthers research towards reverse engineering the brain.

Another interesting article via Boing Boing about a speech by Clay Shirky at the Web 2.0 conference April 23, 2008. The speech deals with the implication of free time available due to technology, and how this time had previously been mostly used up watching TV. He then posits that with the advent of easy content creation ( via the Web, Reprap, Ponoko or other means) that this free time will be finally utilized in ways that are productive instead of squandering our time on mostly useless endeavors ( though I would argue that some time spent socially bonding is necessary .

The Future of Stuff

The above machine is called a RepRap, a form of rapid prototyper. It's basically a printer that uses plastic ink to extrude items layer by layer from a plan file.

The a lot of the stuff that is assembled and shipped around the world to consumer markets is plastic. Just think of phone housings, toys, car interior panels, buttons.... The list goes on. Imagine that these printers were very cheap and affordable, almost free. Then the need to ship large amounts of stuff from far away places could be replaced by local production on demand, with great degrees of customization to the final product, and highly reduced energy requirements . The need for large warehouses of stock items and inventory control would diminish as well.

One of the prime goals of RepRap machines is to enable them to produce a copy of themselves, or at least the parts to do this that can be assembled. This hasn't been achieved yet, but progress is being made. There is also room to scale the machines size an relative outputs up and down.

Other efforts are being made to enable printing of circuitry and embed other material types along with the plastic. This might allow inexpensive robotics or replacement parts. The ability to recycle feedstocks would also be enhanced.

The project is 'open source' as well, with a collaboration of international designers working together and making the fruits of their labor free to all. The potential to allow the worlds poor access to material goods at low cost is incredible.

So here we have a machine that can produce a massive range of products ( with possibly even more coming in the future ), able to reproduce a large portion of its own constituent components ( and aiming for all components), and no licensing fees or IP concerns. Can you spell market disruptions?

Although I think the technology is useful, worthwhile, and should be developed, it promises to be extremely destabilizing to the current economic system. Without forethought and a guided transition, I see the possibility of massive corporate failures and unemployment levels soaring.

Think of Mao Mart , one of the biggest employers in the world. Imagine if they didn't have to rack half the stuff they currently do and that they no longer needed external factories to produce the goods. Thats basically 75% of the current employment that Mao Mart supports gone up in smoke. Overnight. No transition period. Pink slips in the morning.

People will still be able to afford things, thanks to RepRap production, but what will they do? There is no RepRap for re-educating oneself into a new career. Idle hands tend to make idle minds as they say.

Of course some things will still bulk produced on older style industrial machinery, but it seems sensible that this too will be further automated, and spare parts provided by onsite RepRap type machines. Humans are getting thrown out of the loop faster and faster, and nobody is really that prepared for it.

A larger example of RepRap extension is Contour Crafting work by Dr. Khoshnevis at USC:

As can be seen in the rendering at left, this is basically a RepRap type machine that can output houses ( no self reproduction however.....yet).

Again this would be a massively disruptive technology if no precautions are taken to mitigate the economic disruptions. Imagine the number of unemployed housebuilders, forestry workers, etc...

I don't propose a Luddite attitude and burying these advances, but I do think due caution is in order. As the recent economic downturns have show, the economy is deeply intertwined and interdependent. One card falling can knock over whole houses.

Exactly what to do is up for debate, and I don't have a completely adequate solution as of yet. But like many of todays technologies, these advances are barreling down on us from the future at the speed sharks with laser beams . And until humans are able to be augmented to keep the pace, special considerations must be made in order to allow them to stay in the picture. Futureshock is upon us.

Weekly Roundup From My Web Travels II

Over at Al fin, theres an article about 'grassoline' the direct conversion of biomass cellulose to hydrocarbon fuel. This is second generation bio-fuels coming to the fore, which is much better than the corporate- welfare- scam corn to ethanol production we see today.

Over at Gizmag, there is an article about IBM creating a demonstrable racetrack memory, which would have no moving parts. Such memory systems are speculated to be able to have 100 times as much information density as well as being much much faster. Imagine 500000 songs or 3500 movies on your mp3 player!






As someone who has personally dealt with a friend in the advanced stages of Parkinson's related dementia, I find this news from MIT interesting:

Reprogrammed Stem Cells Work on Parkinson's:A study in rodents suggests that skin cells can be transformed into neurons to treat neurodegeneration.

Parkinson's is thought to occur due to genetic susceptibility and exposure to environmental toxins. Rates first became highly noticeable after the start of the industrial revolution.

The disease itself causes tremors and interferes with motor control, and many times causes dementia, a decreasing of cognitive ability due to neuron death in the brain.



Time to get new cookbooks!: Scientists Flesh Out Plans to Grow ( and Sell) Test Tube Meat

Wired reports that vat meat might be available within 10 years at cost competitive rates.

My take is that this is good. Greenhouse emissions from ruminant flatulence will be reduced ( as well as other sources....but they're secondary to cow farts) , space and energy requirements will be reduced, and the whole ethical issue becomes moot. As well, this is just the start of the technology. Given scaling and advancements, the cost will most likely come down substantially over time.

The end of me.

Imagine there was a prosthesis that could replicate a human brain and allowed one to 'upload' their mind into said brain. Imagine one went out and I got their can opened and one of these brain-o-matics installed. Imagine it was me.

I think most people I know would then claim that I wasn't really me anymore, even if I acted and talked exactly the same way. There would always be some underlying sense of me being a replacement in their minds, and I'm sure a lot of distrust and ostracizing would follow, with accusations of me being pale shadow of my former self.

But lets say I used a different approach. Suppose I went and had only 1/4 of my brain thus replaced instead. In this case most people I know would view me as having a prosthetic or augmentation depending on the level of emulation achieved. I would seem to be the same person in their minds, and because the remaining portion of the original me would lend me an air of continuity.

Carrying this forward, lets say I then successively replaced the remainder of my brain in 1/4 increments. Or say at 1/1000 or 1/100000 or some arbitrary portion as an increment.

Then at what point would I cease to be seen as me? At the ultimate replacement? If the amount successively replaced is small enough, wouldn't it be more likely that the biological component of the remainder would simply be an unused segment? So the demarcation line is fuzzy in certain cases.

But the idea that I had shared my bio and mechano portions in my noggin for a while would lend credence to the notion that I had survived the transition, and that the me people were dealing with would be the real me. My brain would share its entire experience with the new brain, and if there were both in there for a while experiencing together, I could easily claim my brain-o-matic portion carried my original mind. Eventually, even after total replacement, the continuity of the transition would diminish any fears my colleagues and acquaintances that I had been replaced.

In my mind ( the current, bio one) the best approach to the 'upload' is the graduated, slow transition. It allows my monkey self to transit the self preservation urge and pass into a new level of being. It allows my monkey group to satisfy the group include familiar/cast out the alien urge and maintain the same social dynamics.

I began to think about these things after reading transhumanists and several other blogs comments about how in the very near future we would have enough understanding of the human mind and its interfaces in order to allow such uploading. Some estimates puts it at about 15 to 30 years away, which is not that much all things considered. Someone potentially born in 1938 could survive to this event if they lived to 100 ( which is something else looking very feasible with modern medicine.... but that's another post).

The idea put forward by Kurzweil et al. is that we would simply upload ourselves, and that the continuation of the thought image would constitute immortality. But thats like copying a DVD and claiming the new one is the original.

That idea of Kurzweil's quite frankly freaked me out! That wouldn't be immortal me, but only a cheap copy who talked and dressed like me in cyberspace! ( or worse yet, had improved social graces and stole my friends).

But if I went gradually as outlined above, when would I really cease and the copy begin? If was able to take the 'fuzzy' route, then it would be an indiscernible moment and not noteworthy. This is in the same way as our constant cellular replacement is unnoticeable.Therefore I am not considered a clone of myself from 6 months ago, but still the same being.

I think that that the continuum of experience is a necessary component to the process of immortality. Without using a continuous process, when the flesh passes, then it is cessation and death of the original. The copy is a new being, with different experience from the point of reproduction onward. More like offspring than immortality.

Weekly Roundup From My Web Travels I

Sleep, beautiful sleep:

From DVICE, an inflatable office cozy. Since sleep is my second ( or is that third) favorite pastime, I'm particularly drawn to this. Read it here

Home away from homes:

From Geekologie:
An underwater dome could be yours for the low low price of 80K

Get yo' exoskeleton on:
Geekologie strikes again with the technological solution to creating romantically dashing suitors out of the everyman ( should be especially useful in the every widening population of North America)




Outsource your design:

In case you missed it in the wires, Ponoko is a service in New Zealand and San Francisco that will use a laser cutter to etch or cut your designs out of a range of materials, and even ship them to a destination for you. This means no set up, no hiring and firing, no inventory, and few hassles. All you need to do is upload your design templates which can be created with basic drawing tools, get them to cut and ship. They even have a showroom!

Currently the biggest drawbacks are limited materials types ( wood, acrylic , mdf, ...) , lack of guaranteed straight cuts ( the laser is centrally positioned over the material sheet, so it cuts at an angle) and lack of sizes ( max 79 x 38.4 cm, so no 8' x 4' sheets of plywood).

The End is Nigh

The end of the world, as we know it is coming.

Actually the world as we know it has changed in the last second since you started reading this.

Our propensity to cling to familiar and comforting conceptions of 'what its all about' are the means by which we create our human realities. But the real truth (in my mind , because 'the truth' is always subjective) is that our models of reality are a priori wrong. Close but no cigars.

I have hope for what happens after the end of this world though. The next rebirth will be informed at least, thanks to the communications technologies that have erupted onto the scene. With the drive to bring all the world online, perhaps dialogues will win over fear as the driving force of what is termed reality'.

To whit: I believe in the very near future Artificial Intelligence will transform society in ways that could not be imagined presently. I know there are skeptics, but in my own life I have both heard my elders talk of the incredible changes ( ' 5 cent ice cream cones and 10 cent comics') and seen many things change beyond recognition. So the idea of inhuman minds does not seem too far fetched for me.

I started down this path of thinking after one day searching for 'whats coming next in technology' through Google. This led me to Ray Kurzweil and a misbegotten band of positive futurists. The central theme running through the discourse of this band of merry men-cum-machines is THE SINGULARITY, a concept that has multiple definitions and represents more of a zeitgeist or a movement than a single concept. The main thrust however seems to be the empowerment of men ( used in the plural and including women) to overcome all difficulties, be they material, emotional, physical, or otherwise. The main means is through the exponential increase of our cognitive capacity by means of artificial intelligence or augmentation of our biological selves.

While I do have some reservations philosophically about the outcome and the means of getting there, in the end I agree that its a worthwhile goal. Rather than stay here and react as animals to what we consider real, our reality could be shaped by our thought, and more importantly , much more objective thought than the current mess of reactionary existence.

In the end, transcendence. Hopefully positive transcendence, but there are other outcomes. If you have a great attachment to the current world, then enjoy the moment while it lasts. It won't be there forever.

Oops, there it goes...

Welcome!

Hello to all visiting here.

This blog is about what I happen to think is neat, cool , interesting , whack, w00t!, worth thinking about, or whatever.

A lot of it will be me recapping my weekly web travels as I'm an info junkie and I like to share. I'll post any original source links so you can check out the original articles as well.

I'll also post some opinion pieces that I write once in a while, musings about our changing world. Fell free to comment, though I'll erase any blatantly insulting responses so trolls back under the bridge.

Hopefully it won't take up too much of my time and some of the things I share will inform or amuse readers. Otherwise I've lived up to my fathers expectations.