Your Brain in Public Domain?

This Boston Globe article by Carey Goldberg brings up the area of "neuroethics" and quotes Bruce H. Hinrichs, professor of psychology at Century College in Minnesota
who says "corporations could try to worm their way into consumers' minds." Duh. I am afraid they already have. The notion that the future could hold small, cheap, easy to use MRI gear does challenge privacy issues and would open the doorway to the most invasive form of advertising ever known. While academia finds themselves haggling over new laws to protect individual privacy, I am left to wonder why is it that we have such a lack of ethics that we must fear new technology rather then celebrating it? I know never ask "Why?".
via blogdex

MEMS the Wurd

Check out memsnet.org
Microcomponants or Micro Machines MEMS are Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems. Which have garnered various net-tention, most known as the sensors for automobile air bags. The newer less bulky MEMS are heralded as a tenth the price and size and more efficient. The person submitting this link who suffers from diabetes was excited about the notion of using MEMS technology to implant a chip into a diabetic that would determine when the person's blood sugar was too high and then automatically delivering the appropriate amount of insulin into the body. VERY COOL.
via Marcy (thanks!)

USS Xlaphone Nuclear powered spaceship

The newly named "Project Prometheus" nuclear powered spaceship proposed to orbit Jupiter's icey moons. The name sounds Buck Rogers enough. Formerly called "Cassini", professional political enviromentalist groups like Sierra Club protested its developement. ( It is not really called "Xlaphone", it just looks like one. Check out the animation and fuller story at MSNBC here.)

media MIT up to their world changing ways once again

Are they really "questioning the social code of privacy" in human potty interaction, or is that edu-speak to justify geek play?
See the video or read the white paper (pdf) here
While I can see this become a standard like "target" liners in urinals, I don't know if the world becomes a better place. Not to mention the sexist discrimination against those who sit. : ) Actually, I have been looking into the costs of creating a receptionist that greats people at the door via flatscreen LCD, my robot Deardra needs better training (don't tell her), or I need to buy a pre-programmed one.
via Linkfilter (nice recent cosmetic site update from 'net grunge to 70's eclectic?)

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

While we are talking sci-fi stories Roger Williams kuro5hin.org contributor has posted a science-fictrion novel online here. I wish it was available in a format for my palm like Cory's book, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. While I won't promise a review, as I have never even given a proper review to Cory's book, this inspiration for this site, I will try to give an update once I read the story titled "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect".
Via Futurismic again (I try not to just rip all the content for this site from other blogs unless it is really well associated information that visitors might have missed. Speaking of which April marks the biggest traffic yet for Whuffie.com with 70,000 hits.)

Hive Mind Sci-Fi Shorts

Unwirer is a blog that Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross are colaborating short stories on. Is this the future of publication? Colabaorative works, influenced by the public in a real time authoring enviroment? Networks of hive minds pumping out futuristic artworks, written by everyone? What if other creative works were 'hived this way? Historically great minds heavily influance each other, with derivative and hybrid works. Does this mark the first in a pioneering effort towards "open source" style creative authoring? Will the results be so superior and profitable that "solo" will become diminutive?

While I will have to read the outline to step fully into the storyline, the comments are surprisingly revealing of the author's process. My question is how open to comments could a writer be without either becoming completely confused or losing cohesive direction? I guess it depends on the author(s). Some creatives can take external input and magnify it into something bigger, others demand quiet self inspiration. That said, it is a collabarotive work, which is conducive by nature to group think.
Via Futurismic (Newly added to the link list, a netnews blog similar to this sites subject matter combined with a boingboing thang')

Identity Explodes
"Dragging all human behavior into the public is literally totalitarian," said Bob Blakely, chief security and privacy scientist for IBM's Tivoli Systems.."

This pulled from Cnet perspective by Michael Kanellos, reaffirms my notion that a Whuffie system though considerably intrusive is nothing compared to future identity systems created in the name of "security":

puckering points:
• supercomputers reconstructing your entire life in minutes
• "mind reading" video cams that know your facial expressions and body language
• data mining randomizers that remove identifiers for studying trends. (Sure they will.)

I remember one time spending three months trying to clear my name of a state hopping namesake who did not pay his phone bills, it was frightening, I could not prove I was me and he was not. It was my SSN#, that finnaly saved the day. The item we must be deadly serious about is protecting ownership of our identities. A nation, organization, or people group who directly or indirectly obtained extensive ID info would seriously compromise democracy, liberty, and individuality. Our govedrnment must first protect our ID's from foreign and domestic powers, and then we must charter constitutional amendments that re-establish the balance of power in identity rights.

A good read.

Be careful of those who claim Ashcroft is the author of America's Orwellian nightmare, much like the bizzare clone cult, extreme attract's attention while truly subversive deeds are done. | other privacy/identity news

White Knight in Testing (Don't tell Nat X) Futurism Cont'd

The space race is on, and with a gumball rally like feel, racer's compete for a 10 million dollar prize. At least the Russian space station will have some competition. | Full Story here| contest site here update: read about other grassroots space programs via boingboing.net

Retro Futurism

Try this great index of random retro futuristic items.
One, might think that my attraction to futurism, makes me utopian or socialistic. Untrue, I just think too much of our future is shaped by a minority who thinks about the future, when it should by a topic forged by the majority. True futurism as embraced by greats like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckmisnter Fuller, our forefathers in this country (And many others abroad) seeks to make the hardships of life better for some, and provide hope for many, through science, ingenuity, hard work, and ideas. For example Ev Williams inventor of Blogger should be heralded for producing a technology that is truly empowering: sites like this one or this one show that a small voice can reach the world, with a simple technology applied.

What makes an individual truly unique is not one's wealth, strength, ideas, or other noble qualities, it is one's birthday-the time that one lives in. We live in truly dynamic times, though many are content to bumble through, the events of the war, no matter what side you are on, speak starkly of the power of technology, ideas, and individualism. The new era we are in is now punctuated by Monday April 14, 2003 the complete mapping of the human genome. The future is you.

cyberfictionreview.co.uk A nicely done UK site with blog and reviews of science fiction literature from a "mattheww" visitor to this site.
Titles that I recognize:
Pattern Recognition, Altered Carbon, Snow Crash, Nueromancer. (Know that is saying little as although I largely enjoy sci-fi literature, I am painfully underead.)
No Down and out in the Magic Kingdom? Not even in his upcoming list. Of course he claims that only 10 people in the UK have heard of Cory Doctorow. (How inflammatory!) But to his credit he does have outbound links to boingboing.net and Bill Gibson.

update: I just realized that no reviews have been posted yet. I will wait, the site looks good so far. Maybe this will be the start of a new UK literature craze. I have always been a big fan of C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien.

Accordian Guy Saved from Peril by "web trust"

My stats had a serious spike last week with trackback from The Accordion Guy at Kodefu.com. Who had been blind to the bad whuffie of his new squeeze.
The readers digest version for those who had not heard: Joey deVilla meets girl, Joey deVilla blogs of her wonderful attributes, blog visitor makes comment about her being a scam, Joey deVilla meets in person with comment maker for authentication, potential harm and grief was greatly avoided thanks to an open environment of information on the web. | full story |

I think the "blogosphere" picked this up because it shows the potential good of of the virtual community created by blogging. Blogging is better than the psychic network. I think this is a strong indicator of the potential for a whuffie system. I think the key for that system to be truly functional is an open opt in, adhoc environment, that is not simply a tool serving a corporate or government entity. (or serving political or financial intersts, either.) But a people's system, made by the people, for the people, and of the people.

The fulcrum question in an age where identity issues and ethics are in the spotlight, how can one continue a reasonable amount of confidentiality, and still participate in an open database like the Whuffie system?

I am still working on my postulates for such a system that I plan on publishing soon and it is a given that certain parts of ones Whuffie database would be entirely opt-in and either entirely private, or accessible to only certain users.

However, the issue of privacy could also be approached from an oncoming global transition to a "no privacy" social system. Meaning that everyone's records are available to everyone everywhere. While this is questionable if not reasonably distasteful to everyone, it has already happened. Big corporations often have more information about you and your habits, then even you or the government, who has also been trying to catch up from the rear of the information compilation process. Another shocking example is that Google can deliver anyone's listed street address by entering your phone number (area code first, separated by dashes.) It used to be you had to either be a recipient of a local phonebook directory mailing, or obtain one to get that info, but now anyone anywhere can know where you live anytime. While that seems invasive, and even frightening, it also can be comforting. That pushy car salesman, might not be so rude when he see's you Google his home address from his phone # on his business card. Caller ID has surely seriously deminished prank calls. (Although I got one from some total moron, who's home address I know, not too long ago.)
Don't get me wrong I am a big advocate of privacy. However, our world is being redefined by technology, and it up to us to create ethics that coincide with it.
While criminals will likely always hide in the shadows with false identities, publicly held, open information systems could actually serve to diminish criminal activity and identity theft, while at the same time, protecting your rights to privacy. Unfortunately the common man is down by ten, and "Big Brother" is heading towards the end zone.
Many think it is too late, and that it is a fate we have to accept. I do not. This kind of cowardice, apathy, and willingness to accept control, is what fuels dictatorships, cruel monarchies, and disfunctional democracies. We are the architects of our world. We must reason, act, and sacrifice for our future and our children's future.

Scientific American Frontiers garners admiration

I am currently watching Alan Alda on PBS, he is at the MIT media lab talking with developers of wearable computers, which have went from bulky cumbersome helmets, belts, backpacks, and visors to an overcoat and glasses. | More on garments via boingboing

Previously they were demonstrating fabricating machines that could create things quickly from a simple template, and the idea that these fabricating machines could proliferate and become common. Then when you wanted a knew bicycle it would be emailed to your GE home fabricator and be made in minutes. It also briefly touched on how this could become an "open source" direction for product development. Real time input from users. Imagine.

The next segment is a piece about a backpack that records in "360 degree" "panoramic" shot of a students entire life. The student has rewound the stored video and audio date through computer algorithms searching for the rhythms in life and using the oddities as searchable benchmarks. Your whole life on a hard drive, mobile computing with head mounted screens? Have they been reading my blog? Or Cory Doctorows book?

The final segment is robots-Blah blah blah. I am tired of robots. I want to see more exoskeletons, that seems neat. Maybe one that is cheap, simple, and low powered that can help the average construction worker, or fruit harvester.

Seeing the MIT media lab workshop reminds me of visiting the San Francisco museum as a child, there were spinning stools that held you on by gravity, Laserbeams set in sand creating lighted paitings, and giant rooms covered in tinfoil and lit with strobelights, (Dad do you remember that? *auto email here.) My question is why don't highly creative environments like MIT create miniature development labs that visit every school every year?

*How could you flag a post on your blog and when it is published the flag sends and email requesting input or information from someone simultaneously, and copies the post to the email? This could be useful and seems like a logical step in the free flowing think environment of weblogs.

Contest

Contest
All you mobile programmers out there wanting to get more mobile, can compete for cash or Segway human transport. I remember when mountain bikes were cool. Recently, I went to buy a new set of forks for mine, and the guy told me it would be cheaper to just buy a whole new bike. Contest here programmingcontest.com (What will they do when the contest is over sell the domain?) via k10k

Game of Life

Why haven't any aspiring gamers created elementary or highschool level video games, that let players compete in a pseudo real life situations, giving youngsters an advantage in preparedness and some benchmark for their futures? I would have appreciated that as a youngster. Take that a step further to consider a super mainframe that literally creates a video game based on any new venture you are embarking upon? Or how about video games that take your psychological profile and uses gaming situations to challenge your weak areas, or even heal those who are depressed or mentally ill? I am sure these items have been developed in different applications that are not main stream enough to have reached my observation. (I created a CD-ROM for a company who did virtual reality games teaching history to kids some time ago.)
I am by no means a video game freak. When I was in my teens I could be found at the local bowling alley or arcade playing games like Asteroids, Joust, Defender, Space Invaders, and Galagha. I had a friend who worked for Adobe, who had multiple computers networked and would have late night Doom parties. Of course he had figured a way to make the bad guys have faces of the players, so killing yourself all night in a dark spooky labyrinth got old. I have even sat in on 48 hour games of D&D where the participants got a little to "into" the game. But they don't hold my attention. Especially once I conquer them. One of my favorites games is Flying Nightmares, a flight simulator that allows you to fly a Harrier jump jet. It took me about a month to figure out how to take off and land on the carrier. It does get really cool when you add the fact that is also a battle plan simulator. The closest I will get to flying a 17 million dollar jet. We are not talking a hi end simulation, everything is square and pixilated. But once you start playing your brain doesn't care, it becomes a virtual reality. I remember flying a 2:00am mission over Timor when I was jumped by f-14's, I was genuinely spooked, and after dropping my payload, I high tailed it back to the ship. I also found it quite relaxing to drink a glass of Cabernet and fly my f-22 raptor simulator over the Gulf. They had even included dolphins playing in the water. Until my game flipped out, my pilots head would always turn backwards in the middle of a dogfight which became a real problem. But that is it, I don't play generally play video games.
This NYT article talks about electronic war gaming for the military and questions if simulations do not now or in the future cause soldiers to see real life war as a mere game. Which leads me to some thoughts about artificial memory like that talked about in Doctorow's book Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom. At what point would induced memories become familiar enough to seem real? I recall my folks showing me photographs of my childhood that I can now visualize as memory, but I think it is just the photo that is a memory.
Another story about gaming via Linkfilter

Mem Words and Stats

Memwurdz
I came across a post about "mem words" at MarketingFix.com which spoke of the idea of inventing a new catchy word or phrase, or taking an existing one, and using it on your blog to draw traffic from those searching it as a keyword.
In reflection that is exactly what I did with this site. It was instinctive and entirely unplanned. Although I have very few affiliate links, my stats have shown 20,000 hits a month since I published this Whuffie blog (now Whuffie.com) there appears to be only about 2,000 unique visitors and around 150-200 referral links. Around 100 search strings (mostly from Google) searching with keyword. Learn more about mem words here.

update: Here's a funny political mem word- "Dixie-Chicked" I am afraid it might stick. Read Drudge here for a good definition.

via Blogdex via AdRants

List of works By Cory Doctorow

Here is some info about Cory Doctorow and a list of his titles.
From the "Internet Speculative Fiction Database".

Space 'Coptors & Voices in your Head

Space 'Coptors & Voices in your Head
Copious inventor known for what is now called the Sonogram, Woody Norris has invented a personal helicopter the 254lb. ultralight "AirScooter" is easy to fly and requires no liscense. According to some AirScooters and Segways may become as popular as cell phones and the internet.

Norris has also come up with a new phenomenal way to hear sound inside your head without speakers. This leads me to question, will privacy laws have to be extended to inside your own skull? As if spam, junkmail, and phone marketers were not enough imaging advertisements interrupting your thoughts! The consequences of this new sci-tech aside, it is rumored to replace massive concert audio systems in a way that everyone in the event would hear at the same volume eliminating the bain of concert attendees: "FRBES" or front row bleeding ear syndrome. Not to mention the military implications: "Saddam, this is Allah, TURN_YOURSELF_IN."

Full 6 page New York Times story here

via boingboing

Automated Whuffie bots?

After some comments were exchanged both on this blog and a few others, Kevin was finally able to get through to my thick head about the issue of "Votelinks". Which seemed like a lot of trouble for nothing and a repeat of the wheel. I had misunderstood that the purpose was to have people voting on thier outbound links. Kevin clarified as did Rainer that although this may be observed by individuals, that the real motive was to correct a flaw in the current spider search engine systems, that essentailly say the more links you have the better, which potentially could boost some lame-o yet controversial blog or website. This brought to mind a subject I had not yet considered: bots, spiders or otherwise automated devices that are "secretly logging your activities and words and generating Whuffie points".

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

"Digitally distill a person's identity into data. Newborns are outfitted with a 'stack,' a lipstick-size data-storage device at the base of the brain's cortex" "..When someone dies, this backup identity is downloaded into a new body, or "sleeve." Real death occurs only when someone without remote storage dies and the 'stack' is destroyed..."
Obviously if you are Cory Doctorow, or one of the readers of his new book, this is not new subject matter. But, okay, he is an innovator and his ideas are just reverberating in new fictional materials? But is Altered Carbon available for free online? Well it is not due for release in the US until next year. While available soon in the UK. Via USA Today FULL STORY

What are friends for?

Those wanting to link to this site can now simply use whuffie.com (redirect) thanks to Josh. This wins him points since he has not yet contributed to this blog as he claimed he would. I also have to give him a break as he is busy taking care of that expecting wife. That and he said he is on chapter 4 of Doctorow's 'Down and Out.