04 May 2007
Implants as a Threat for Business
Complex Networked Architectures
Taking up from Jared's post on Simple Complexity...A complex networked architecture designed to save time will not cover all aspects of Everyware. Think about Modernity and industrialization. All the sudden we had the power in these nations to create mass suburban housing developments; build huge urban institutions from reinforced concrete, steel and bricks; and ultimately what happened? At least in urban environments, the structures and architectures we built are largely uninhabitable; often doing more harm than good. Now zoning laws transform habitable areas into uninhabitable areas, this is why I go downtown for my volunteer work. Surrounded by buildings which work great during the daytime, but are completely vacant at night; leaving behind those who panhandle for change in the daytime. And rightly so, we do need change, they do need change, and they go to the source of their oppression and ask for it; downtown. Theirs’ is a direct tax, operating outside the law, purely by the sympathy of human nature; while the corporate method is indirect and operates by the laws of oppression and taxation.
I see downtown as the equivalent to the harbors of Boston in the 18th. The taxes stem from those buildings/harbors. They lobby in congress, get some zoning laws and property taxes changed so they can indirectly boot the people living in the places they need to build on; for those areas are prospected for their ease of access, low cost, and time saving location.
And we're on route right now to do the same thing modernity did with its industry and factories. Its good that we have people like Greenfield calling attention to these contemporary issues, getting the word out and asking us to discuss, but the focus on convenience and time-saving, at the moment may sound wonderful, considering how valuable time is to us, but time is very much money, and not everyone has equal access to that, but everyone does have equal access to time, so lets not screw this up like much of Ford-ism did for Modernity. That complex networked architecture is no different from the one we're building today; luckily, for now at least we still have the opportunity to influence that outcome…
some European nations are doing some really cool stuff with sustainable, organic, & interactive architectures, I think these guys are moving in the right direction; how bout yall? do you think this is a very likely route our current economy would take-up?
03 May 2007
Random Ramblings ~ Rebuilt
Chorost’s inspirational account in Rebuilt was indeed a great read. It seems like every time you read parts of this book, there’s something new to reflect upon.
Every Chapter title is a memoir in itself:
1. Broken
2. Surgery
3. Between two worlds
4. Activation
5. Forget about reality
6. The Computer Programs me
7. Upgrading
8. The Logic I loved and Hated
9. A Kinship with the machines
10. A Kinship with the Humans
11. The Technologies of Human Potential
12. Mike 2.0
By glancing through the titles, one can recap the entire experience. I could not have hoped for a better ending than Chapters 11 and 12. Mike 2.0 was truly heartfilling. My views on Cyborgs and Biotechnology have changed after reading this book. I have always been skeptical of the interference of advanced technology with the human body, on the premise that the human body was not made to function like this. That when artificial things in the body go wrong, they can really go wrong. But, after an introspective account such as Rebuilt, one can really experience within close quarters, the difference it makes when a man is able to go against the forces of nature, battling a disease that he was born with (Rubella) and overcoming the problem that impaired him from birth. For no apparent fault of his own. But once you marry technology (cochlear implant) and the human body with harmony and care, great things can happen!
I maintain my cautious views on the matter, but can now say with confidence that if this interference (technology and the body) can continue to change lives, and inspire others with similar problems..show them the light, and the courage to pursue this light…then it is definitely a boon. And no critic can take this away from them. My views on the matter have gone through a revelation, but one that I can confidently say, has made me see, experience and feel, the other side.
01 May 2007
Biotechnology
30 April 2007
Rebuilt Second Life
I mean if I had one line from a poem was repeating in my head over and over again for more than 30 minutes(like it did with the author of the book), I most likely would go crazy. Yet, I guess the body adjusts and most just learn to tune it out, like we do a clicking clock, only hearing it when we really pay attention or when it becomes all of a sudden quiet.
On Wednesday, we also tried logging on to Second Life and playing it. though it took forever to log on, and when it did there were major glitches in the system. It was good to see how social systems are constantly being upgraded, changed and made better, like everything that we deal with in life now. Even when there was a major glitch in the system and i couldn't modify my character's appearance, nor see my character, I was helped by another newbie who had the same problem. We talked to each other until i was unexpectedly logged off the system, and amazingly only took 3 minutes to log back on again. And just like technology today, sometimes you just need to restart the system to make it start working again, as we could see since this is Windows solution to almost all problems imaginable (otherwise known as The Blue Screen of Doom/Death).
Second Life
Rebuilt
What a lovely book. I liked it just as much the second time around as I did the first. He takes a subject that not many people understand unless they are directly involved with the implant, and makes it easy to understand and so personal- he writes as he would speak, directly to the reader from his heart. I felt like I could really relate to his struggles, and his problems in life. I also enjoyed hearing about the behind the scenes part of the implant industry. It is the part that never gets mentioned. Nobody ever hears about the testing, and the people that built the implants by hand, and the people who wrote the software. Nobody knows about the trial and error in reproducing sound, in looking for newer and better ways to do the same thing. Nobody knows about the mistakes, like the processors that leaked, or the processor that didn’t work right, or the positioner, which gave some users meningitis. All these things fade into the background of the novelty of the invention itself: a device implanted into the brain that functionally reproduces the ability to hear for people that cannot. I just think that even with all of its problems, it is so amazing how far this technology has come, and how far it will eventually go.
Brain Interpretation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/860000/images/_864815_cochlear_implant_inf300.gif
It blows my mind that this is acctually a real thing. Now a days we also have the lasik eye surgery to where they make someone who has bad eyes sight, much renewed. My parents and grand parents have had it.
http://www.eyeclinicpc.com/lasik/lasik%20steps1.jpg
Now someone with bad eye sight and bad hearing can be renewed. This is such an amazing feat in the medical technological field. What will they come up with next? What kind of medical technologies do you think will be here in the near future? Do you think that the prices for these operations will get cheaper?
From the book rebuilt, all in all, I learned that we need to be appreciative for our blessings and just everyday things we take for granted. We should love every day and realize we are lucky because we can hear, see, think, and learn so easily in such a great enviroment!
Simply Complex
High Complexity in the Service of Simplicity
Take my R2 unit for example (no i don't really have one though it'd be freaking awesome). Artificial Intelligence is built upon automations of automations. Programming of the most complexity. Time and research has been spent on this field for ages with significant, yet limited, results. But the capabilities of these robots are amazing. Just passing by the Robotics Lab in Taylor Hall, we can see little puppies playing soccer. Not cloning or scientific experiments, just soccer. The students at this university have achieved a great feat though. If these puppies can play soccer, then tackling dirt and trash in the house will definitely be an option in the near future. Yet these programmers have coded their butts off just to reach that milestone. High complexity that no one could understand, few have and put it inside mechanical dogs. It's purpose...to play soccer, next: sweep and mop floors. Technology will do everything for us to make our lives simpler, but we must simply make technology able to do everything.
29 April 2007
the on/off switch
I've flip-flopped back and forth all semester long, one day condemning everyware, the next praising it. Finally I realize my capricious fence jumping was symptomatic of my need to be able to turn everyware off. For me control must ultimately lie in my hands, and as innovative and slick evryware seems it can one day be I was still uncomfortable with the loss of human control. I never thought about being able to turn it off. I always saw the possibilities of everyware as a double edged and therefore a little scary--- HAL 9000 scary, 1984 scary. Now that I realize the painfully simple solution of the on/off switch, well hell I'm not so apprehensive. The day my front door threatens to sue me is the day I get evicted from my apartment so being able to turn aspects of everyware off is definitely reassuring. Now that I'm writing this I'm beginning to think that one of the most important things which will have to be available in everywarfe is the off button. As the systems we create continue to expand in influence and complexity we lose a bit of our individuality. By individuality I mean our ability to shape our surrounding through purposive action. Everyware streamlines our lives but we lose the choice of purposive action. The loss might be nominal, even trivial its still a loss of control. So three cheers for the off button, it rocks and thank goodness for it! Everyware, in all its efficient glory must remain dependpent on us, not the other way around. Systems fail, stuff breaks and people make mistakes and in my experience, turning stuff off is a good way to fix it (sometimes hitting it with a shoe works...sometimes). So as we near the end of the semester I can say I've learned a lot about IT&S, I bore my buds at happy hour recounting the telegraph etc, but I'm rally glad to learn about he off button. I'm a simple guy, technologically provincial, I get by ok but also get lost a lot. So once again the whole off button thing, hell yeah it rocks.
24 April 2007
More surprises?!?
When reading Rebuilt I automatically realized the potential that it had for “listening” to music. Imagine where we are all wirelessly connected to our music and phone players, through our head. I know in the book his had a wire, but I think he talked about an easier one to wear while he tumbled under the covers. I’m not sure if this had a wire or not, but with all the Bluetooth and wireless technology around, I’m sure its not too far in the future if it is not already here. But just imagine that. Wouldn’t it be awesome? I’ve mentioned in class before about the soundless sound system that uses high and low pitches to create music and sound that can be heard by one or many people. Yet that doesn’t come close to what this could do for the music industry. The way he talks about how he hears the music sounds like its not too distorted from normal…but then again, it may just be the quality that turns people away.
Another question that entered my mind while reading. Would it be possible to someone connect these as a communication device? Earlier on I talked about a phone, yet now I’m meaning more, is someone able to someone get into that system and make him hear what they want to? It’s a scary thought, and I hope that it wouldn’t be possible. I mean, if its just a hard drive in which you could encode programs, whose to say you can’t write a program for receiving someone else’s signal. Either way, I love the guy’s humor, reading in public is hard to do with this book only because my random snorts of laughter are pretty embarrassing in a quiet setting.
23 April 2007
Digital Ears
Micheal must have been so confused learning to cope with his new found hearing. From calibrating the maximum settings to manually adjusting volume on his wrist, I am sure it was a strange experience. If you forget to change your ring tone volume on your cell its really no big deal, you can call people back, but if you forget to turn on your hearing… well you are def.
“The toilet flushing: an explosion” (54)
Not only do you have to go through the hard ache of adjusting volumes, it seems like your brain has to become familiar with this electronic hearing. I guess in a lot of ways it makes sense, the technology is not 100% the same as hearing, I am sure that is an incredible feat. So Micheal also has to fine tune his own mind to the new workings of his digital ears.
Cochlear Implant
I can understand the anxiety and frustration Michael felt adapting to his cochlear implant. The whole reality of a tiny microchip replacing my hearing with its own interpretations of audio signals through 1s and 0s can be a bit unsettling. Not only that but a microchip designed by programmers who have their own ideas of what hearing is to sound like can lead to doubts. None the less I would have gone through with the implant just as he did. To live in a world without being able to hear would be unimaginable. Not to be able to talk to your family and friends, you would really be living in a world not many other live in or understand. Then there is the whole process of getting accustomed to your new implant which reminds me of an assignment I did in another class where we had to navigate a computer only using the keyboard. I know this is not even near the same level as trying to reclaim your hearing but it sure frustrated the heck out of me and I couldn’t imagine how Michael who has no other choice might have felt. To add to any more problems, there is that optional upgrade which is so tempting because of that longing to hear as normal as possible, which if one does decide to upgrade leads to the whole process of getting accustomed to the new sounds once again right when your comfortable where your at.
SAS v. CIS
The fact that our Author is a computer programmer makes this book way more interesting as well. He looks at it from the prospective of a computer programmer, and that makes the book come alive. Without his critical thinking do you think the book would have happened? I do not think he would have seen all of the angles of the surgery for himself if his career path had been different.
Do no harm
Digitalized and Dehumanized.
It kinda made me think of "The Terminator 2: Judgment Day". In this one ol' Arny comes back as the good guy...and is basically the perfect human. There is a point in the movie where...Sarah Connor...don't know her real name, points it out. The terminator would never get mad and hit him, never get drunk and hit her, never sleep all day and want to watch football all night...a machine will do what it is told and programmed to do without human error.
So I am not surprised that the angle of incorporating machine like benefits into a human is being looked at. It's just a matter of how far. Will it go so far that instead of our cars communicating with each other, we are telling the car behind us we are gonna change lanes via a blue-tooth chip in our head and the other drivers head? Will we one day not even have to go anywhere to have our life? Like the man who lived through the lamdamoo...will the world one day become a digital life? Instead of going to work, I'll just communicate through my computer and do the work there. It all sounds pretty far fetched to me, but in 1000 years, where will life be? If there are people living there life through digital worlds now...what about then.
Not quite there yet...maybe never?
Thesis 70 proposed that to"act in good faith, it's simply not specific enough to constitute practically useful guidance" (p. 227). Generally, relying on individuals to act in good faith is not a particulary effective or effiecient. Simple enough to understand but societies are diverese and it will be difficult to syncronize a general inter-societal guidance program (not mention intra-societal programs) and there will be a definite need to legislate some form of control. Given the nature of legislation this will require an increase in bureaucracy to implement the guiding legislation. I think such a guidance program would be inherently better than relying on individuals to act in good faith but would still be naturally prone to ineffiency and stagnation. So what possible solution can we propose to better protect any individual affected by everyware? Is there an absolute definitive best answer, no probably not.
Thesis 71 and the "smart" problem. I'm fairly confident we'll be hard pressed to develop tehcnology that does "smart" well. The human ability to react to interactions with other human beings is a very organic thing. Its a very human thing to react, and tools don't do "human" well. I don't think its possible for tools, and therefore everyware to do "human". I see Pinochio never becoming a real boy, but being a wodden puppet with no strings is still pretty cool.
22 April 2007
Automated? No thanks.
It is true that the devices, such as the iPod, are not “smart” in updating its own firmware, but after working for so many years with the computer, I am not so sure I would even want my iPod or even any other device I may own to do that. I can’t be sure that the upgrade would be able to work as well as what I currently have setup. It’s a nightmare to try to remove an upgrade from something in hopes to restore it back to a good, stable working state.
I still believe that computers are here to enhance our lives, not take over it. You need to make sure that there is human interaction in between otherwise, it could be totally unpredictable. Who knows what may be being automatically installed into your machine or device until it is too late.
Half Human or Half Cyborg?
What I was impressed by the most in Chorost’s story was his ability to plug in devices to his processor and listen to audio files and other audio streams. Sound is sensed by our own ears as just fluctuations of waves in frequencies we can pick up. The cochlear implant works in the same way by picking up these distinct waves and sending them to the brain to translate. The significance of how we are embedding technology in our selves is to show the progression of how we are turning complex human processing into digital form. Eventually someday it would be interesting to see processors capable of competing with the human brain in developing adapting patterns to emotions and behaviors.
20 April 2007
Another example of the gadgets was the cell phone he plugged directly into his processor. It would be like hearing people talking in your head. I bet that would feel really strange the first time. I also had no idea that there were cell phones designed to work with those implants. I think its really cool and obviously very useful for the people that have the implant.
18 April 2007
Cyber Rape & Stolen Identity
Like in our world, I am sure it’s hard to tell and deal with identity in a MOO. So much time and emotion is invested the fact that someone could easily destroy it is a scary idea. Perhaps all social system struggles with identity issues, and how one should properly identify themselves using cards and logins. Because it seems like the story of “Cyber Rape” shares many similar ideas as real life identity theft.