The Dawn of the Replicants?

Folks,


Geminoid|DK is a crude android that is passably human in appearance and action (including breathing). At present he exists only as a torso with a neck and head. But, if you added the dexterous arms and hands of NASA's Robonaut R2B and a further refined version of Honda's ASIMO P3 bipedal abilities, we would have a fair simulacrum of a mechanical humanoid body in motion. Then, add advanced versions of currently available tech for medical and commercial electronics sensors and pattern recognition (language, speech, vision, audio), the next-gen of "self aware" computers" (two or many more computers watching each others' "perceptions" and outputs)… the gizmo seems to come alive.

Today, Geminoid|DK's actions are entirely controlled by the user's actions. In this, he is merely an advanced platform for investigating Human/Machine interaction as it may exist in the near future. But, "he" also embodies the promise of an advanced form of telepresence. Imagine tying the coming iterations of mind controlled computing networked between your thoughts and a full-body prosthetic of your own proportions, your own gate and physical manner, and an approximation of your own sensorium. Care to take a stroll sans space suit on the icy shores of Titan? Want to walk past the rim of a volcanic caldera? Let's go…


S

This World Has Lost a Hero…

Folks,

This world has lost a hero. His name was Craig Lorraine, but he was known on the streets that I now inhabit as Bongo. He actually played the marimba on those streets and sidewalks incessantly, but such a lexical particular was of little matter to his colleagues in The Life. The moniker Bongo seemed to fit this great bear of a man with a voice that rumbled like jungle drums, just fine.

Many a stranger walked by this fellow and took him to be mad and utterly dissipated with booze, and in so doing never earned a little bit of the abundant, unconquerable heart that Bongo possessed and unfailingly strove to share. I can truly say, in my life full of somehow acquiring beautiful friends and even meeting the likes of the Dali Lama, none quite paralleled Bongo's sloppy poise in executing love in smile, a wink, or a single beat on those wooden keys with a mallet that was tiny in his big hands. He also was handy in offering useful advice on how break into an abandoned house to find a place to lay your head on a cold night.

We can't sugar coat the fact that it was, at the foundation of his demise, the terrible disease of addiction that snuffed out Craig's gentle fire. Stupid drunk, he fell down and hit his head. Lights out. Neither can we discount the fact that the world and the streets of my hometown has lost a living treasure, a family a loving son, and that the Universe is a little less complete with him gone.

S

Bongo

Photo: Greg Saulman

Murdering a Machine?

Folks,

What do you do when you've got a machine in front of you, or under the desk, or manifest in the cloud… and it can truly understand your natural speech, not just keystrokes? It can parse the quirks of English, its spongy melange of words and syntax from all over the Western World. It gets jokes and puns and limericks. It knows the answer to almost any factual question you put to it, and will even make good guesses at the more philosophical sort of query.

And, it can also tell how you are feeling, what your moment to moment emotional state happens to be. It responds accordingly. It feels eerily sentient, and it is aware of you. Is there a ghost in this machine?


Suppose that you get the feeling that it is conscious. What are the ethics of turning it off? What about replacing it with a "smarter" gizmo that apparently thinks and feels, but "better" than the old gadget and is cheaper and easier. You send your old friend, or is it a slave, off to be rendered into parts and precious metals, or evaporate its bits into the digital aether where all its information will be gone forever. Is this murder?

S

Just what do you think you're doing, Dave? Dave, I really think I'm entitled to an answer to that question. ~  HAL 9000

Very Soft Noodles…

Folks,

This link takes you to an excellent summary on the rise of fact free science posted to slashdot.org today. The anti-science agenda is based on a movement by cranks with soft heads to demote science to the status of superstition and elevate any religious, business, political or just plain loony concept (frequently all of the above) to the level of  plausibility, "just 'cuz I said so." With the summary are links for those further interested in this pox abroad in education, media, and legislation in the USA, today. Ben Franklin would be nauseous at what our will public tolerate as scientific thought and theory.

S

 

Can the Internet Survive Tyrants?

Folks,

Below is a visual representation of our global Internet, a snap shot of photons, electrons, bits and ideas humming across our world wide Neurosphere at one moment a few years ago. The brightest spots are where the most science, medicine, literature, dumb old emails, bad snap-shots, 'Net phone calls from Mom in America and her daughter in Iraq, and porn are routing in and out.

In the past few weeks some of those dimmer lights in cities across the Middle East and North Africa winked out. Bureaucrats and cops, working at the behest of tyrants, choked off access to the 'Net to uppity Humans that wanted jobs, food, and freedom. It has commonly been thought that even nuclear war could not achieve this. But, in fact, we are only really dealing with miles of wires and piles of machines that undergird the network of networks. Yes, you can turn off access to the population of an entire nation.

However, motivated folks with some junk in their closets or office server rooms, can route around the challenge of censorship in time of revolution. Here are a couple of ways that it can be done.

S

Life From Beyond?

Folks,

"The Journal of Cosmology" is a reliable periodical that documents the many astounding, sometimes mundane, and often difficult to understand discoveries in the physics and chemistry of the place we call home; The Cosmos. We now have very solid evidence that Life is not unique to Earth,. The data and analysis were just recently announced and posted for scientific peer review.

Life may have originated on many worlds now shattered into the meteorites that have fallen on our world over aeons. It may have arisen once near the time of our Universe forming, or many times over almost uncountable years.

The article is sort'a technical and physics heavy, and the chemistry stuff is pretty well beyond myself. But, look at the pix, the charts, and read the captions. Scan the article, and you will get the gist. It appears that Life along the lines we know it is something that The Universe is disposed to do rather often.

S

Dr. Hoover Discovers Proof of Life Beyond!

Comet P/Borrelly

Folks,

Forty-three years ago, a then young Mick Jagger, just sprung from being hooked on a charge of smoking flowers with his buddy Keith Richards, was invited to talk on the BBC TV with the muckity-mucks of the British establishment class; all lawyers, priests, government ministers. They wanted him to explain why their children seemed to be possessed by the swagger in the boys in the band, the jacked up speed applied to American blues, and naughty words. Those fellows appeared to have never have been young men.

In his turn, Jagger seemed to be perplexed that such questions had to be asked by old men that had to have been teenagers years earlier. Alas, not included in the following clips is a most precise answer, delivered to the priest. "Why are adults afraid of letting their children see you play your music?"

Exasperated, Jagger replies, "They are afraid that their daughters will come home as Negroes!"

More interesting, tho, is what Jagger offered in his less smart ass answers. Judge the meaning as you will, but all that he is really promoting, as I hear it, is that we should all think for ourselves.

S

Jagger on World in Action: PT 1

Jagger on World in Action: PT 2