Hairs on fish?

According to this article, researchers at the University of Illinois in pondering why the lamest little diseased fish was more mobile than the most expensive robot money could buy discovered harilike sensors are the reason and developed there own. The technical details for those of you who like that stuff. Soon Illinois will rule the world with it's army of attack robot fish...if only they had an ocean. ARTICLE via Blogdex

Comments fixed [HC]

house cleaning- I had the style sheets for the comments form in white with the default "OCR" font, which made reading the comments next to impossible. I thought it was in the PHP code but I was wrong. It is fixed now.

How "Doctorowian"

Implanting a rat with a computer brain? Well is is not the whole brain just the hippocampus (not a college for fat women). It is pretty cool yet spooky in a late night am radio Art Bell sort of way. If you wake up one morning and there is a strange set of suture marks at the base of your skull now you will know why. Will there be a time where people back up their memories with a hard drive as written in Doctorow's Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom? It looks probable. Will they place those memories into clones and thus create immortality? The ethical implications are pretty heavy for me to know.

via BoingBoing.net | more on brain/computer interfaces from Creative Loafing.

Brain Waves: Neurons, Bits & Genes

New Blog that talks about cool things like Exoskeletons, Augmented cognition, and Neuroethics.
at Corante | Tech news filtered daily.

The "hive brain" using a blog culling Google powered Whuffie system?

"The way bloggers link and influence each other's thinking could lead to a collective thought process, "a kind of hive brain," said Chris Cleveland, who runs Dieselpoint, a Chicago maker of search software that recently worked with Blogger.com. The hive brain is a science fiction theme most famously explored in the 1996 Star Trek movie "First Contact," but Cleveland believes blogs can turn the concept into reality with the help of Google's sifting skills." via CNN/tech ARTICLE

Last nights guest and I discussed the possibility that since Google was originally a page ranking system that possibly the purchase of Blogger was to continue that end by creating a blog culling Google powered Whuffie system. Could it be? Hmmmnn.

Last nights company [OT]

As stated creative programmer Josh Parrish and member of MENSA visited en-route to Seattle, I gave him a bag of tasty Hawaiian Peaberry coffee (1.5lbs $8 Worldmarket) and to my surprise (beware of Floridians bearing gifts) I was presented with Josh's own home roasted Sumatra. The prior night we sampled Fat Tires "Biere De Mars" and with our contribution to the EU some Amsted Light. (Good for a "light" beer, but nothing to get wiggly about.) In the morning we discussed Josh contributing to this blog (among other things pertaining to reputation currency) and we now look forward to his future contributions.

Mobile Logs or moblogs?

"This is already happening. At major technology conferences, 802.11b wireless connections are provided or rigged up by visitors, like the co-host of the popular technology uber-blog BoingBoing.net, Cory Doctorow." (Beavis sez:heh-heh he said "uber" eeehehehe he didn't say "meme" I want memage: 'meme meme meme')

Quote taken from Justin Hall's piece at TheFeature a site about the mobile internet.

Also in follow up to the idea of "multi-modal communication tools in meetings" the article sez:

"Today, any conference with a technology bent is likely to be “live-blogged” - reported in real time over these Wi-Fi connections. In one famous story about the power of wireless-enabled blogs from March, Joe Nacchio, CEO of U.S. telecommunications company Qwest, was on stage speaking at the PC Forum technology conference. As he was complaining about difficulties of running a successful company, webloggers in the audience were corresponding over information about Nacchio’s recent extensive sales of Qwest stock. They posted this information, other people in the audience read it, and there was a mob heckling that ensued as people demanded accountability from the speaker."

Technology indeed has the potential to severely modify social interaction in public settings such as seminars, meetings, and concerts. The question I have would be 1) Will the outcome of said change be productive or subversive? 2) Will these technologies be readily adopted by the mainstream or simply specialized usergroups? I lean towards subversive at first but productive in the long run as speakers learn to articulate in public settings with reference and acknowledgement to weblogs, IM, and eventual Whuffie. I think they will start in small specialized groups, but that as demand for software enabled " personal telephony" increases software developers will intervene making this a standard feature. The biggest impediment will be the developer bloat that companies like Google and Blogger have been able to avoid, empowering people who still cannot program their old VCRs. While mobile phones calling a weblog are supposed to be the definition of a "moblog", emergent democracy in the form of peer to peer weblogs and Instant Messaging or text messaging could be the source for the next Bolshevik Revolution and therefore truly a "mob" of bloggers. But as we know from the history of this example; not all revolutions end in more freedom, as those who orchestrate a revolution scramble to hold their new found power. "Espresso, Hosting Space, Peace and All Power to the Bloggers." (beware of the All-Blogger Extraordinary Commission for Fighting Counter-Technology and Sabotage)