Signs You May Have a Problem

Wait a second - are we really coming up with substance abuse treatments for cell phone usage? Like as if it was nicotine or heroin? If the healthier way to "use" a phone involves an override program that literally makes it more difficult to use, then I think we have a problem here. 

Managing screen time by making phones slightly more annoying to use

May 2024, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-05-screen-slightly-annoying.html

Once the user's designated screen limit has been reached, InteractOut can delay the phone's response to a user's gesture, shift where tapping motions are registered or slow the screen scrolling speed.

The strength of the delays and shifts continues to increase each time the user touches the phone, up to a pre-set maximum, and the user can decide how the app interferes with their phone use. The app's gradual interference allows users to continue using their phone, but with a little extra difficulty.

"If we just continuously add a little bit of friction to the interaction with the phone, eventually the user becomes more aware of what they are doing because there's a mismatch between what they expect to happen and what actually happens. That makes using smartphones a more deliberate process." 

via University of Michigan: Tao Lu et al, InteractOut: Leveraging Interaction Proxies as Input Manipulation Strategies for Reducing Smartphone Overuse, Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2024). DOI: 10.1145/3613904.3642317

https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642317

Image credit: I think this is an early generation of AI image generation, pre 2022 pre Stable Diffusion-era?

Companies may still buy consumer genetic information despite its modest predictive power

May 2024, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-05-companies-buy-consumer-genetic-modest.html

At-home DNA tests have provided millions with insights into their family history and health risk by simply spitting in a tube. Genetic risk screening of embryos at in vitro fertilization clinics is now available. These tests rely on polygenic scores—a tally of variations in human genes that influence a certain trait. However, while powerful at predicting traits in large populations, these scores are rather weak at an individual level.

"Firms operate under a lot of uncertainty and any little bit of information that they have about you is worthwhile."

Using an economic model, the researchers found that companies might be willing to pay because the information may raise profit and is relatively cheap.

The researchers argue that current laws and policies are inadequate to address the ethical, privacy, and legal concerns surrounding the potential corporate use of polygenic scores. While the US Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act prohibits discrimination in health coverage and employment based on genetic information, there are loopholes. The act only covers health insurance, excluding long-term, disability, life, and other insurances. It also doesn't apply to employers with fewer than 15 people, which accounts for 85% of US companies.

"I don't think people realize that when they give up their genetic information today, they're not giving it up just for today; they're giving it up forever"

via Johns Hopkins University Geisinger College of Health Sciences: Potential Corporate Uses of Polygenic Indexes: Starting a Conversation about the Associated Ethics and Policy Issues, The American Journal of Human Genetics (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2024.03.010. 

https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2024.03.010

Self-Aware Underware

Researchers create 'self-aware' algorithm to ward off hacking attempts

Oct 2021, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-self-aware-algorithm-ward-hacking.html

They found a way to hide signals in the unobservable "noise space" of the system:

Using the background noise within these systems' data streams, Abdel-Khalik and his students embed invisible, ever-changing, one-time-use signals that turn passive components into active watchers. 

"We call it covert cognizance," said Abdel-Khalik, an associate professor of nuclear engineering and researcher with Purdue's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS).

"Here, if someone sticks their finger in the data, the whole system will know that there was an intrusion, and it will be able to correct the modified data."

Sounds similar, although not exactly, to the inaudible sounds emitted by the commercials on your phone's music steaming service so that your smart tv can hear it and the two can figure out whether you're listening to their ads, because if the two devices are in the same room, there's a better chance you're with them.

Now that I think about it, maybe it's also like copyright traps, like when mapmakers put fake streets in their maps to catch the people copying their maps who also use the fake streets unknowingly, or when data harvesters put fake people on their marketing lists to catch marketers abusing their lists because they send advertisements to the fake people's addresses (who are usually real people who work for the data company).

Bottom line is -- we're talking about software being self-aware. Self-aware software. The future is now old man.

via Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security:

Arvind Sundaram et al, Covert Cognizance: A Novel Predictive Modeling Paradigm, Nuclear Technology (2021). DOI: 10.1080/00295450.2020.1812349

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1812349

Matthias Eckhart et al, Digital Twins for Cyber-Physical Systems Security: State of the Art and Outlook, Security and Quality in Cyber-Physical Systems Engineering (2019). DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-25312-7_14

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25312-7_14

Yeni Li et al, Data trustworthiness signatures for nuclear reactor dynamics simulation, Progress in Nuclear Energy (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.pnucene.2020.103612

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2020.103612

Arvind Sundaram et al, Validation of Covert Cognizance Active Defenses, Nuclear Science and Engineering (2021). DOI: 10.1080/00295639.2021.1897731

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.1897731

On Sex and Sexuality

I'm reading The Left Hand of Darkness, and for those who don't know, the author Ursula K LeGuin is one of the most important science fiction writers ever, and for more than just this book, but also for some things in this book.

Possiblities in gender and sexuality are a relatively common topic in scifi, but still her description of this foreign race of people called the Gethenians is really quite shocking, especially in this day (2018/gender identity/etc).

She gets really descriptive about it, but I'll be brief. Everyone in Gethen is an ambisexual androgyne - neither male nor female, yet capable of become both. They are, compared to humans (Terrans in scifi lingo), asexual, but in this story, they are NOT asexual one week of every month. At this time they are in "kemmer" (basically like being in "heat"). And when in kemmer, anything goes, and all you do is go somewhere with a lot of other people in kemmer too, and you put your hand in theirs, and as long as both parties consent, voila, sex! (and gender, see below).

Funny thing is, during today's kemmer, you might turn into a woman, and next month's, a man, and you never know which it will be which until the moment it happens. And the partner is always the opposite. And so it's totally normal for people to both give birth to and sire children all the same, and at different times in their lives.

That's all I'll say about LeGuin's genius, because, as usual, truth is stranger than fiction, and we can now turn to nature for another example of disintegrating delineations of gender.

Behold, the anglerfish, and forget what you heard about checking off the "other" box on your birth certificate:

First-ever observations of a living anglerfish, a female with her tiny mate, coupled for life
Mar 2018, phys.org

Once a male finds a female, a seemingly impossible task in the vast open space of the deep sea, he bites onto her body, the tissues and circulatory systems of the two fuse, and he is fed by nutrients received through her blood. The male becomes a "sexual parasite," hanging on for the rest of his life and unable to free himself, fertilizing the eggs produced by the female. The male completely loses his individuality and the couple becomes a single functioning organism.

Mirror Body and Virtual Self

This image is for the wifi article below

Brain-robot training triggers improvement in paralysis
BBC, Aug 2016

"In virtually every one of these patients, the brain had erased the notion of having legs. You're paralysed, you're not moving, the legs are not providing feedback signals.

"By using a brain-machine interface in a virtual environment, we were able to see this concept gradually re-emerging into the brain."

The team intended to use that re-awakened control to drive the robotic legs - but within 12 months they saw such improvement in basic clinical scores that four of the eight patients were upgraded to a diagnosis of only partial paraplegia.

"When I saw this, I couldn't believe it," said Prof Nicolelis.

[and don't forget]
'Brain wi-fi' reverses leg paralysis in primate first
BBC, Nov 2016

And then, let's also not forget that in the remote controlled monkey brain experiments, the wifi-controlled monkey across the world gets its remote signal faster via wifi than our own nervous system. In other words, it takes longer to go from your brain to your legs than it does to go from NY to Shanghai.

Ahh Headlines

Female fish develops male organs and impregnates self

 Mar 24, 2016 report:

(Phys.org)—A female cichlid hybrid fish has been observed to have grown male reproductive organs, impregnate itself and then to have offspring, a team of researchers in the U.K. are reporting in a paper published in the ...

And in other news:

Microsoft chatbot is taught to swear on Twitter

BBC News, March 2016

Grand Theft Auto deer causes chaos in game world

BBC News, March 2016

Yup.

Duality of the Mind

One of the most inconceivable things in the nature of the brain is, that the organ of sensation should itself be insensible. To cut the brain, gives no point, yet in the brain alone resides the power of feeling pain in any other part of the body. (p19)

My guardian angel I believe is taking upon himself the trouble to think for me.
-quoted from a patient, in The Duality of the Mind, Arthur Ladbroke Wigam, 1844, p130

Swift Quanxi

undersea cable cross-section

E-commerce's future is in creating 'swift guanxi,' or personal and social rapport
phys.org, 14 Jun 2013
modified article:

online marketplaces can create the sense of personal and social relationships between buyers and sellers, termed "swift guanxi" in China, to facilitate loyalty, interactivity and repeat transactions

Guanxi is a Chinese concept "broadly defined as a close and pervasive interpersonal relationship" and "based on high-quality social interactions and the reciprocal exchange of mutual benefits" (Ou, Pavlou and Davison)

Communication before a transaction of a few dollars could take more than 45 minutes; this is in stark contrast to American marketplace expectations.

"This study validates this warning by showing the ability of social technologies to transform online marketplaces from impersonal transactions among strangers to personal relationships among virtual friends," Pavlou said. "The future of electronic commerce lies in personal relationships virtually enabled by social technologies."

"Swift Guanxi in Online Marketplaces: The Role of Computer-Mediated-Communication Technologies," MIS Quarterly
Professor Paul A. Pavlou, Temple University Fox School of Business; Carol Xiaojuan Ou, Tilburg University; Robert M. Davison, City University of Hong Kong

The Process of Creation

A composite false-color image of fire in space. The bright yellow traces the path of a drop of fuel, shrinking as it burns, producing green soot.photo: Paul Ferkul / NASA

When an artist creates a sketch of a work she intends to implement more fully in another medium, the sketch does much more than function as external memory to remind the artist what she intended. Rather, the sketch enters actively into the cognitive process of artistic creation.

As the artist works the sketch, erasing lines, drawing arrows, rearranging objects and so forth, the external object becomes part of her external mind, not just recording her thoughts, but transforming…

(Joseph Tabbi, Cognitive Fictions, p125)

In Space, Flames Behave in Ways Nobody Thought Possible:
Combustion experiments conducted in zero gravity yield surprising results
Ker Than, Smithsonian magazine, December 2012

Inside-OutsideVia the –membrane-, the cell controls exchange between interior/exterior to its own advantage in order to maintain a high level of internal organization, but in so doing it also requires reciprocation of the exterior – the two coevolve. (p155)
-Lee Smolin, The Life of the Cosmos, 1997, Oxford
http://networkaddress.blogspot.com/2012/10/inside-out-side.html