Monday, January 28, 2013

No Place for Humans

sync:

A World that is not where Bodies live...

source: "A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace", distributed via the Internet, circa. 1996, by John Perry Barlow
via: The Souls of Cyberfolk: Posthumanism as Vernacular Theory, Thomas Foster, U of Minnesota, 2005

The coding used the same four "letters", or bases, but in a language living cells would not understand


DNA 'perfect for digital storage'
23 January 2013, Jonathan Amos, BBC

"The DNA we've created can't be incorporated accidently into a genome; it uses a completely different code to what the cells of living bodies use," he explained.

"And if you did end up with any of this DNA inside you, it would just be degraded and disposed of. It really has no place in a living being."

-Team member Nick Goldman, European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) at Hinxton, near Cambridge, Mass.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21145163

Saturday, January 26, 2013

On Ephemerality


'Melt in the body' electronics devised
James Gallagher, 27 September 2012

(the 'E' is for Ephemerality)

Ultra-thin electronics that dissolve inside the body have been devised by scientists in the US and could be used for a range of medical roles.

The components are made of silicon and magnesium oxide, and placed in a protective layer of silk.

It is part of a field termed "transient electronics" and comes from researchers who have already developed "electronic tattoos" - sensors that bend and stretch with the skin.

They described their vanishing devices as the "polar opposite" of traditional electronics, which are built to be stable and to last.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19737125


POST SCRIPT:
did someone say ephemerality?
Banana Art, by Phil Hansen:



correction: This leopard banana is by Filiz Kusan
Filiz Kusan
and so's this, very nice..not a banana
Filiz Kusan


Phantom Streets and Authenticity


In an article about a mysteriously undiscovered island in the South Pacific, scientists wonder what happened. Did mapmakers, perhaps, create the fake island on purpose, they ask, because -




...some map makers intentionally include phantom streets to prevent copyright infringements.



South Pacific Sandy Island 'proven not to exist'
BBC, 22 November 2012 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20442487

Go Home Time, You're Drunk

Some places — labeled in red — have no time zone, and just observe Coordinated Universal Time, by default.

So this is what time zones look like in Antarctica
Robert T. Gonzalez, Jan 22, 2013
http://m.io9.com/5977955/so-this-is-what-time-zones-look-like-in-antarctica

time










Sunday, January 13, 2013

Public-Private Partnerships and Bandwidth-as-Currency

Investment in fiber optics is down, wireless is up. It leaves unused fiber laying around. By being able to deliver to specific customers on-demand, as opposed to a large-investment, wide-area of customers, PPP's can use up this unused fiber, and then run your life with it. (but not really; but then again; see below.)

NASA Langley Research Center - Multimedia Repository

Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?
KLINT FINLEY 01.11.13
clipped:

"Seattle is one of several cities left behind by the major broadband providers, but it happens to have excess fiber capacity. But according to The Seattle Times, few residents have been able to take advantage of it, though Spectrum Networks does offer service in the South Lake Union neighborhood."

"The problem, Ansboury explains, is that the most expensive part of a fiber deployment is the what’s called the “last mile” service — bringing fiber from the big “backbone” connections to the customers’ homes and office buildings. Gibabit Squared will lease fiber capacity from the city and build much of the last mile infrastructure itself."

-Mark Ansboury, president and co-founder of GigaBit Squared, broadband provider company\

[The topic of bandwidth is next mentioned in the article, where we are looking at the potential for wireless to equal fiber. It is so very difficult not to remember Charles Stross, in his posthumanist scifi Accelerando (2005), where he places a lot of value on bandwidth in the future, and ever offers a solution to the Fermi paradox, claiming that the apparent lack of intelligent life in the universe is an illusion created by a shortage of bandwidth. Anyway, back to reality.]

...the secret to getting and maintaining these speeds is keeping the user count low, according to GigaOM

...the issue with both CTC and DARPA’s project is how many simultaneous users it can support
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/01/google-fiber-shaming-exercise/all/

It's hard to see the future without wireless communication dominating all other forms. The problem with the future of bandwidth will not be what -  the medium of transmission - but who and when is using it and at how much. It's a time-management issue mixed with some user-prioritization. We can imagine myriad package deals of data use, similar to peak times and multi-tiered data plans already in play. But now imagine that you need data to live, more than money, in fact, and the better job you have, the better your data package. The president can have maximum access of the total bandwidth if he wants, whenever he wants. Children under 6 years old get much less.

With so many new ways to create disparities within society, what laws will we be fighting for and against?

Zoning Laws in the Metaverse
JUNE 25, 2012
Decision-making, Public Oversight, and Privatization
AUGUST 4, 2012

Crowdsourcing


Meet the Genius Behind the Trillion-Dollar Coin and the Plot to Breach the Debt Ceiling
RYAN TATE 01.10.13
modified:

“It was really a pointless conversation” 
...underlines how ad-hoc online communities, like an anonymous international band of commenters, are increasingly able to move their ideas from the fringes into the middle of political debate.
Goliard Figures, in Umberto Eco, The Infinity of Lists, 2008. p. 263.

It may have started as a game, but Beowulf and his pals are poised to inject an important new tactic into oversight of the government’s monetary institutions.

The coin hack even surprised and impressed former U.S. Mint director Philip Diehl, who co-authored the law that enabled the platinum loophole in the first place.
“When I first heard about the idea to mint a trillion-dollar coin, I was very surprised,” says Diehl. “But because I know that law backwards and forwards, I knew immediately that the guy who came up with the idea was right."
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/trillion-dollar-coin-inventor

But it wasn't 'a guy' who 'came up with' the idea, it was many.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Preconceptions Blinds Perception


Sorayama Gynoids (Sexy Robots), circa 1980's

"We have preconceptions about how an intelligent robot should look and act, and these can blind us to what is already happening around us. To demand that artificial intelligence be humanlike is the same flawed logic as demanding that artificial flying be birdlike, with flapping wings. Robots will think different. To see how far artificial intelligence has penetrated our lives, we need to shed the idea that they will be humanlike."

Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — And Must — Take Our Jobs
KEVIN KELLY 12.24.12, Wired