Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

Systems Evolution & Bio Feminism: Move Over Darwin by Rachel Armstrong (C Theory)

Rich — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:10:00 -0800

Synthetic form, possesses some but not all of the properties of living systems, are not alive and can be regarded as 'Living Technology'. This particular species (designed by the author -- unpublished) is able to construct magnetite tubes that resemble 'worm casts'.

.......
Biology is the study of the laws of the natural world. Nature may be regarded as the endogenous system underpinning the genesis of living organisms and their environment. In human terms, the organization of the natural world is reflected in the issues arising from the science of reproduction, heritability and the creation of life. Since these processes biologically occur within the intimate spaces of the female body, feminism has sought to represent the interests of women in the control and regulation of human reproduction in modern Western culture. To date the dominant political and social paradigms of Western society are patriarchal and invoke a dualistic worldview based on the dichotomy of male and female with an associated division of these roles in the creation of life.

This dualistic ordering of reality is also hierarchical: the principle of male over female, mind over body, culture over nature, and so on. Male, mind and culture are exercising hierarchical control over female, body, nature.

Heidegger, Habermas and the Essence of Technology by Andrew Feenberg

Debashish — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:52:00 -0700

Andrew Feenberg is the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology at the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University. In this article he considers the specificity of our Modern Age as Technology, as identified and theorized both by Martin Heidegger and Jurgen Habermas. Both these seiminal modern/contemporary thinkers, though marked by divergence in important respects, see Technology as the determining agent for modern subjectivity as a condition of subjection, alientaion, instrumentalization, homogeniety and social fragmentation. Feenberg here analyzes primary and secondary characteristics of Technology and indicates possibilties of technological reform in a post-industrial context to reintegrate culture, community, creativity and participatory improvization into world culture. One may note that though for the purposes of his own transformative discourse, Feenberg construes Heidegger and Habermas oppositionally as essentialistic in their characterization of Technology, in fact his reformative possibiltiies return us to Heidegger's view of the essence of Techne as Poiesis.

Cybernetics Is An Antihumanism: Advanced Technologies and the Rebellion Against the Human Condition: Metnexus (Global Spiral)

Rich — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:25:00 -0700

Reference: 100 years of Sri Aurobindo on evolution

In those places where Heideggerian thought has been influential, it became impossible to defend human values against the claims of science. This was particularly true in France, where structuralism—and then poststructuralism—reigned supreme over the intellectual landscape for several decades before taking refuge in the literature departments of American universities. Anchored in the thought of the three great Germanic "masters of suspicion"—Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud—against a common background of Heideggerianism, the human sciences à la française made antihumanism their watchword5, loudly celebrating exactly what humanists dread: the death of man. This unfortunate creature, or rather a certain image that man created of himself, was reproached for being "metaphysical." With Heidegger, "metaphysics" acquired a new and quite special sense, opposite to its usual meaning. For positivists ever since Comte, the progress of science had been seen as forcing the retreat of metaphysics; for Heidegger, by contrast, technoscience represented the culmination of metaphysics. And the height of metaphysics was nothing other than cybernetics.

Let us try to unravel this tangled skein. For Heidegger, metaphysics is the search for an ultimate foundation for all reality, for a "primary being" in relation to which all other beings find their place and purpose. Where traditional metaphysics ("onto-theology") had placed God, modern metaphysics substituted man. This is why modern metaphysics is fundamentally humanist, and humanism fundamentally metaphysical. Man is a subject endowed with consciousness and will: his features were described at the dawn of modernity in the philosophy of Descartes and Leibniz. As a conscious being, he is present and transparent to himself; as a willing being, he causes things to happen as he intends. Subjectivity, both as theoretical presence to oneself and as practical mastery over the world, occupies center stage in this scheme—whence the Cartesian promise to make man "master and possessor of nature." In the metaphysical conception of the world, Heidegger holds, everything that exists is a slave to the purposes of man; everything becomes an object of his will, fashionable as a function of his ends and desires. The value of things depends solely on their capacity to help man realize his essence, which is to achieve mastery over being. It thus becomes clear why technoscience, and cybernetics in particular, may be said to represent the completion of metaphysics. To contemplative thought—thought that poses the question of meaning and of Being, understood as the sudden appearance of things, which escapes all attempts at grasping it—Heidegger opposes "calculating" thought. This latter type is characteristic of all forms of planning that seek to attain ends by taking circumstances into account. Technoscience, insofar as it constructs mathematical models to better establish its mastery over the causal organization of the world, knows only calculating thought. Cybernetics is precisely that which calculates—computes—in order to govern, in the nautical sense (Wiener coined the term from the Greek xvbepvntns, meaning "steersman"): it is indeed the height of metaphysics.

Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers N. Katherine Hayles

Rich — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:40:00 -0700

I understand "human" and "posthuman" to be historically specific constructions that emerge from different configurations of embodiment, technology, and culture. A convenient point of reference for the human is the picture constructed by nineteenth-century U.S. and British anthropologists of "man" as a tool-user.(15) Using tools may shape the body (some anthropologists made this argument), but the tool nevertheless is envisioned as an object, apart from the body, that can be picked up and put down at will. When the claim could not be sustained that man's unique nature was defined by tool use (because other animals were shown also to use tools), the focus shifted during the early twentieth century to man the tool-maker. Typical is Kenneth P. Oakley's 1949 Man the Tool-Maker, a magisterial work with the authority of the British Museum behind it.(16) Oakley, in charge of the Anthropological Section of the museum's Natural History division, wrote in his introduction, "Employment of tools appears to be [man's] chief biological characteristic, for considered functionally they are detachable extensions of the forelimb" [p. 1]. The kind of tool he envisioned was mechanical rather than informational; it goes with the hand, not on the head. Significantly, he imagined the tool to be at once "detachable" and an "extension," separate from yet partaking of the hand. If the placement and kind of tool marks his affinity with the epoch of the human, its construction as a prosthesis points forward to the posthuman. Similar ambiguities informed the Macy Conference discussions taking place during the same period (1946-53), as participants wavered between a vision of man as a homeostatic self-regulating mechanism whose boundaries were clearly delineated from the environment,(17) and a more threatening, reflexive vision of a man spliced into an informational circuit that could change him in unpredictable ways.

By the 1960s, the consensus within cybernetics had shifted dramatically toward reflexivity. By the 1980s, the inertial pull of homeostasis as a constitutive concept had largely given way to theories of self-organization that implied radical changes were possible within certain kinds of complex systems.(18) Through these discussions, the "posthuman" future of "humanity" began increasingly to be evoked. Examples range from Hans Moravec's invocation of a "postbiological" future in which human consciousness is downloaded into a computer, to the more sedate (and in part already realized) prospect of a symbiotic union between human and intelligent machine that Howard Rheingold calls "intelligence augmentation."(19) Although these visions differ in the degree and kind of interfaces they imagine, they concur that the posthuman implies a coupling so intense and multifaceted that it is no longer possible to distinguish meaningfully between the biological organism and the informational circuits in which it is enmeshed. Accompanying this change, I have argued, is a corresponding shift in how signification is understood and corporeally experienced. In contrast to Lacanian psycholinguistics, derived from the generative coupling of linguistics and sexuality, flickering signification is the progeny of the fascinating and troubling coupling of language and machine.

James Joyce and the pre-history of Cyberspace by Donald Theall (Hypermedia Joyce Studies)

Rich — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:54:00 -0800

Donald Theall, Marshall McLuhan's first graduate student recently past away. Theall like McLuhan was also a brilliant Joyce scholar and saw much of what we now know as cyberspace prefigured in his works. - rc

The Gutenberg Galaxy, a book which redirected the way that artists, critics, scholars and communicators viewed the role of technological mediation in communication and expression, had its origin in Marshall McLuhan's desire to write a book called "The Road to _Finnegans Wake_." It has not been widely recognized just how important James Joyce's major writings were to McLuhan, or to other major figures (such as Jorge Luis Borges, John Cage, Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, and Jacques Lacan) who have written about aspects of communication involving technological mediation, speech, writing, and electronics.

While all of these connections should be explored, the most enthusiastic Joycean of them all, McLuhan, provides the most specific bridge linking the work of Joyce and his modernist contemporaries to the development of electric communication and to the prehistory of cyberspace and virtual reality. McLuhan's scouting of "the Road to _Finnegans Wake_" established him as the first major disseminator of those Joycean insights which have become the unacknowledged basis for our thinking about technoculture, just as the pervasive McLuhanesque vocabulary has become a part, often an unconscious one, of our verbal heritage. In the mid-80s, William Gibson first identified the emergence of cyberspace as the most recent moment in the development of electromechanical communications, telematics and virtual reality. Cyberspace, as Gibson saw it, is the simultaneous experience of time, space, and the flow of multi-dimensional, pan-sensory data: ...

Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies III

Debashish — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:05:00 -0700
The concluding section on Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies by Debashish Banerji continues its second installment's reflections on the Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence presented to us as the emerging destiny of post-Enlightenment Modernity and compares this destination with its appropriation and supercession in the Neo-Vedantic teleology of Sri Aurobindo. What are the differences, dangers and promises of these destinies and what are the conditions for achieving an alternate destination? ...

Avatars in the Living Room: 2nd Life in Augmented Reality

Rich — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:09:00 -0700

This demo shows the use of Second Life as a platform for Augmented Reality. With our modified Second Life client, avatars and other Second Life graphicss can be superimposed perspectively correct on a live video stream and in real-time.

Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto (Carolyn Keen)

Rich — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:05:00 -0700

(image courtesy www.idf.net)

Donna Haraway's cyborg manifesto is one of the most important text of cyber-cultural studies as well as feminist studies of the past twenty years. Her conclusion that she draws, "I'd rather be a cyborg than a goddess" is grounded in the following analysis of the cyborg given here by Carolyn Keen (rc):

"Cyborg replication is uncoupled from organic reproduction" (150) "The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family" (151).

The cyborg does not aspire to "organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity" (150). The cyborg "is not afraid of joint kinship with animals and machines...of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints" (154). The cyborg is the "illegitimate child" of patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism.

The cyborg thus evades traditional humanist concepts of women as childbearer and raiser, of individuality and individual wholeness, the heterosexual marriage-nuclear family, transcendentalism and Biblical narrative, the great chain of being (god/man/animal/etc.), fear of death, fear of automatism, insistence upon consistency and completeness. It evades the Freudian family drama, the Lacanian m/other, and "natural" affiliation and unity. It attempts to complicate binary oppositions, which have been "systemic to the logics and practices of domination of women, people of colour, nature, workers, animals" (177).

Haraway likens "cyborg" to the political identity of "women of color," which "marks out a self-consciously constructed space that cannot affirm the capacity to act on the basis of natural identification, but only on the basis of conscious coalition, of affinity, of political kinship" (156). "Cyborg" though, is grounded in "political-scientific" analysis. This analysis takes up most of the "manifesto." (Keen) ...

Shift Scenario: Averting Extinction, by Jim Fournier

Ron — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:43:00 -0700

It may be possible for the global system to undergo a change in state, a fundamental shift from one of increasingly intractable interrelated crises to one characterized by mutually reinforcing synergetic solutions.

The global situation has become like a Gordian knot wherein it appears that all attempts to solve any one crisis in isolation only makes others worse. We face myriad crises, all aspects of an unprecedented breakdown in many global systems that is already coming to a head and will become acute within a decade or less. Spiraling debt, the impending end of abundant oil, global warming, overpopulation, mass extinction and a general acceleration of change verging on chaotic instability can all be seen as part of a pattern of converging indicators at a unique moment in history. Many of these trends (enumerated in more detail below) are still accelerating and are apparently characterized by logarithmic curves...

However, there is another plausible scenario. At a critical point, key trend lines could shift from curving one way, representing ever accelerating but increasingly unstable change, and cross over to begin to curve the other way, representing deceleration toward a state of greater stability. Mathematically, this phenomenon would be described as an S-curve; the point where the curvature changes from facing one way to facing the other is called the "point of inflection". ...

Who's on Top in Tech-Readiness?

Ron — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:42:00 -0700

...the Global Information Technology Report... assesses 127 economies on scores of factors ranging from the cost of mobile phone calls and available Internet bandwidth to the quality of higher education. Not just a catalog of technical specifications, the report weighs these measures to determine which economies are best positioned to compete in the information-intensive 21st century economy.

The conclusion, as in previous studies, finds Nordic countries grabbing five of the top 10 slots, with Denmark and Sweden placing No.1 and No.2 for the second year running. Credit widespread Internet usage, supportive government policies, and good education. The U.S. came in at No.4, up three positions from last year. Although the U.S. gets top marks in innovation and education, it's pulled down by "red tape and rigidities" that stifle its business environment...

Hello BlackBerry, Meet the iPhone

Ron — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:21:00 -0700
...last week, Apple announced iPhone 2.0. It’s not a new phone model (although that will be coming this year, too)—it’s new software for the existing phone. And in my considered opinion, it will be an even bigger deal than the iPhone itself...

I can’t tell you how huge this is going to be. There will be thousands of iPhone programs, covering every possible interest. The iPhone will be valuable for far more than simple communications tasks; it will be the first widespread pocket desktop computer. You’re witnessing the birth of a third major computer platform: Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone.

All of this, of course, will have the side effect of enriching Apple; Apple’s shrewd that way. But aside from the usual Apple-bashers online, nobody will mind. The release of iPhone 2.0 is over three months away, but I’ll stick my neck out and make a prediction: it will be a gigantic success, spreading the iPhone’s popularity both upward, into the corporate market, and downward, into the hands of the masses. iPhone 2.0 will turn this phone into an engineering tool, a game console, a free-calls Skype phone, a business tool, a dating service, an e-book reader, a chat room, a database, an Etch-a-Sketch…and that’s on Day One. ...

WMAP gives thumbs-up to cosmological model

Ron — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:27:00 -0700
It’s easy to forget that until recently cosmology was largely a theoretical science. Thanks in particular to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which was launched by NASA in 2001 to study the cosmic microwave background, researchers are now able to talk about the first instants of the universe with the kind of certainty normally associated with a bench-top experiment.

With the analysis of two further years of WMAP data announced last week, that view of the early universe has just got even more detailed. As well as placing tighter constraints on parameters such as the age and content of the universe, the five-year WMAP data provide new, independent evidence for a cosmic neutrino background. The detection of such low-energy neutrinos, wrote Steven Weinberg in 1977 in his famous book The First Three Minutes, “would provide the most dramatic possible confirmation of the standard model of the early universe” — yet at the time no-one knew how to detect such a signal.

Laser Light Creates [first?] Black Holes In The Lab

Ron — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:57:00 -0800
Imagine being able to peek inside a black hole and even perform experiments there. It may not be as far-fetched as it sounds, thanks to a team which claims to have simulated a black hole’s event horizon in the lab. -- Ulf Leonhardt at the University of St Andrews, UK, and his colleagues accomplished the feat by firing lasers down an optical fiber, exploiting the fact that different wavelengths of light move at different speeds within an optical fiber.

They first shot a relatively slowmoving laser pulse through the fibre, and then sent a faster “probe wave” chasing after it. The first pulse distorts the optical properties of the fibre simply by travelling through it. This distortion forces the speedy probe wave to slow down dramatically when it catches up with the slower pulse and tries to move through it. In fact, the probe wave becomes trapped and can never overtake the pulse’s leading edge, which effectively becomes a black hole event horizon, beyond which light cannot escape.

This “laser black hole” could allow physicists to examine what happens to light on both sides of a event horizon – “a feat that is utterly impossible in astrophysics”, the authors note in their paper. ...

New frontiers in space propulsion sciences

Ron — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:00:00 -0800
Abstract

Mankind's destiny points toward a quest for the stars. Realistically, it is difficult to achieve this using current space propulsion science and develop the prerequisite technologies, which for the most part requires the use of massive amounts of propellant to be expelled from the system. Therefore, creative approaches are needed to reduce or eliminate the need for a propellant. Many researchers have identified several unusual approaches that represent immature theories based upon highly advanced concepts. These theories and concepts could lead to creating the enabling technologies and forward thinking necessary to eventually result in developing new directions in space propulsion science. In this paper, some of these theoretical and technological concepts are examined approaches based upon Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, spacetime curvature, superconductivity, and newer ideas where questions are raised regarding conservation theorems and if some of the governing laws of physics, as we know them, could be violated or are even valid. These conceptual ideas vary from traversable wormholes, Krasnikov tubes and Alcubierre's warpdrive to Electromagnetic (EM) field propulsion with possible hybrid systems that incorporate our current limited understanding of zero point fields and quantum mechanics. ...

Toyota Will Offer a Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle by 2010

Ron — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:00:00 -0800
The chief executive of the Toyota Motor Corporation said Monday that he is pushing his company’s engineers to develop a plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle with a lithium-ion battery before 2010, raising the stakes in a race with General Motors...

Mr. Watanabe said he welcomed a competition with G.M., which plans to introduce its own lithium-ion hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt, around 2010. -- He said the contest would help reduce the “negative aspects” of automobiles, and ultimately help the environment.

“To compete against each other” in such a battle “is something to be congratulated,” Mr. Watanabe said through an interpreter. “We dont want to be the loser in that competition, of course.” ...

Tata Unveils the World's Cheapest Car

Ron — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:48:00 -0800
It's called the Nano, for its high technology and small size. It's cute, compact, and contemporary. It's a complete four-door car with a 623-cc gas engine, gets 50 miles to the gallon, and seats up to five. It meets domestic emissions norms and will soon comply with European standards. It's 8% smaller in outer length than its closest rival, Suzuki's Maruti 800, but has 21% more volume inside. And at $2,500 before taxes (value-added taxes increase the price by about $300), it is the most inexpensive car in the world. Starting this fall, the Nano will roll off the assembly lines at a Tata Motors (TTM) plant in Singur, Bengal, and navigate India's potholed roads.

The Nano, also known as the People's Car, is Ratan Tata's dream come true, and is India's contribution to changing the global auto industry. "The car has put India on the global map," says Fionna Prims, head of business development for Segment Y, a Goa-based automotive consultant for emerging markets. "Tata has done in four years what the Japanese took 30 years to do. It will change the whole industry." Even rivals are gushing. "It's a red letter day for Indian industry, a day India should be proud of," says Venu Srinivasan, chairman of motorcycle maker TVS Motors. "Ratan Tata has the vision to create a new business model and all the naysayers are looking at it with concern. The Nano is a path breaker." ...

US DOE Project Shows New Technology Can Cut Electricity Use

Ron — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:39:00 -0800
Technology that allows consumers to respond to electricity price increases by cutting back on their usage in real time can lower customers' bills and create significant reductions in demand, a project spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has shown.

On average, consumers who participated in the project saved about 10% on their electricity bills and reduced peak power use by 15%.

The project, dubbed the Pacific Northwest GridWise Demonstration Project, involved two separate studies, both involving consumers in Washington and Oregon. In one study, called the Olympic Peninsula Project, 112 homeowners were given new electric meters, thermostats, water heaters and dryers that could be customized to a particular comfort level. -- Customers could set the devices on a spectrum ranging from complete comfort - meaning the desired temperature would be maintained regardless of the price of electricity - to complete economy. The devices were connected to IBM (IBM) software that automatically lowered the thermostats or shut off water heaters when electricity was most expensive, according to the limits set by the homeowners. ...

One Laptop Per Child Versus Intel--Who Speaks for India and China?

Ron — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:48:00 -0800
Here's an interesting article re the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project. I disagree with the article's conclusion (it omits the vast online support to be provided to olpc students), but I think it deserves further discussion here on SCIY. What do you think?
At the Consumer Electronic Show this week, the One Laptop Per Child foundation was supposed to make two announcements—the number of computers it sold under the Give One, Get One holiday program and a new olpc machine made jointly with Intel. But now Intel has pulled out or been pushed out of the project with olpc, depending on who you believe. It’s a mess and a mess of huge dimensions that encompasses a conversation of profit vs. nonprofit, nationalism vs. colonialism, technology vs. pedagogy, rote vs. experiential learning, Western design vs. Eastern design, good intentions vs. bad intentions. It doesn’t get bigger, or nastier. ...

'Tipping Points' in Global Climate Change: Latest report from AGU SF Mtg. of Dec.07

Ron — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:28:00 -0800
This recent report, from the session on 'Tipping Points' at the important Dec.07 American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, illustrates the complexity of current technical discussions about the validity of the increasingly disruptive climate change scenarios being projected by various Climate Change computer models. The bottom line is that our models may be seriously underestimating the rapidly of the coming changes, as indicated in the previously posted article re the melting of arctic sea ice. ~rj

...In Hansen's talk, he did try to clarify what he meant by a tipping point. His notion of this has less to do with what mathematicians understand as "bifurcations," and more to do with a kind of inertia in the climate system. He means things like having passed a threshold of CO2 which, given warming in the pipeline and the lifetime of CO2, commits a certain discrete event — e.g. loss of perennial sea ice or the Amazon rainforest– to occurring even if we were to later reduce emissions to zero. He tried to distinguish between reversible and irreversible tipping points...

...where things get interesting is where you try to explain a magnitude of signal this big in terms of basic physics. This is important because there is a perception that GCM's vastly underestimate the amplitude of the response to total solar luminosity, leading to a perception that there is some "missing physics" (whether it be exotic amplification of a stratospheric response, or something like clouds and cosmic rays)...

But — the take-home point is that at this point the study of solar cycle response very strongly supports the notion that there is no need to invoke any mysterious or exotic missing physics (like cosmic ray modulation of clouds) in order to represent the response of climate to solar variability. If some models underestimate the response, this is likely to have more to do with errors in the vertical mixing of heat than any missing fundamental physics. ...

Nanosolar begins large-scale printing of revolutionary non-silicon 'nano-ink' PV

Ron — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:57:00 -0800
Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity. From there, you can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air. Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well, because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than burning coal. That’s the promise of thin-film solar cells: solar power that’s ubiquitous because it’s cheap... Silicon Valley–based Nanosolar [has] created the manufacturing technology that could make that promise a reality... With backing from Google’s founders and $20 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, Nanosolar’s first commercial cells rolled off the presses this year.

Traditional solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity... even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy... To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt. Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt.

“You’re talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,” says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. “It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar.” ...

'Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within', a new feature length documentary

Ron — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:41:00 -0800
Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within is a feature length documentary which invites the viewer to rediscover an enchanted cosmos in the modern world by awakening to the divine within. The film examines the re-emergence of archaic techniques of ecstasy in the modern world by weaving a synthesis of ecological and evolutionary awareness, electronic dance culture, and the current pharmacological re-evaluation of entheogenic compounds.

Within a narrative framework that imagines consciousness itself to be evolving, Entheogen documents the emergence of techno-shamanism in the post-modern world that frames the following questions: How can a renewal of ancient initiatory rites of passage alleviate our ecological crisis? What do trance dancing and festivals celebrating unbridled artistic expression speak to in our collective psyche? How do we re-invent ourselves in a disenchanted world from which God has long ago withdrawn? Entheogen invites the viewer to consider that the answers to these questions lie within the consciousness of each and every human being, and are accessible if only we give ourselves permission to awaken to the divine within. ...

"Code Name God" – Science Could Support Spiritual Beliefs

Ron — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:33:00 -0800
Dr. Mani Bhaumik is the co-inventor of the laser technology that made Lasik eye surgery possible. His contributions to science merited the rare dual election as a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, while his successes won him a spot on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Eventually he discovered that :happiness is an inside job," and immersed himself in study of the hidden relationship between science and spirituality and the integration of mind and matter. He has published over fifty papers in professional journals and maintains a lively correspondence with other physicists around the world. His alma mater, Indian Institute of Technology, bestowed him with an honorary D.Sc. degree for lifetime academic achievements. Dr. Bhaumik is the founder of the Mani Bhaumik Educational Foundation, which currently provides full scholarships to sixty seven extremely bright but underprivileged Indian young men and women to enable them to earn a university degree in science, engineering or medicine. His US Foundation, Cosmogenics, is set up to foster research in consciousness and healing as well as mind/body integration. ...

Xohm's law: Can WiMAX defeat cellular’s resistance to change?

Ron — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 01:00:00 -0800
...What makes WiMAX so special? Think of it as WiFi’s big brother. But where a wireless network in a home, hotel lobby, airport lounge or coffee shop can provide reliable wireless connections at speeds of one or two megabits per second over distances of a few hundred feet, WiMAX is good for at least 10 megabits per second over five miles or more. Better still, in its latest guise, WiMAX can “hand off” connections from one radio tower to the next as users roam around—just like a cellular network.

WiMAX can thus fill the gaps in internet coverage, especially in rural areas and developing countries, where laying cables or telephone lines is too expensive. WiMAX can also provide internet access to mobile users from nearly anywhere. That opens up a whole new market for mobile carriers as well as for makers of internet-access equipment and suppliers of web services.

But WiMAX is not just for people on the move or in remote places. It can also provide internet connectivity to all sorts of devices. Intel wants to put its cheap WiMAX chips in traffic lights, surveillance cameras, television sets and medical equipment. Expect to see them also in digital cameras, iPods and dozens of other portable gizmos. ...

The Twisted Tower (The 150-story Chicago Spire)

Ron — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:00:00 -0800
Thanks to RY Deshpande for suggesting this article.
Perched on the shore of Lake Michigan, the Chicago Spire’s seven-sided corkscrew design will be more than just an audacious architectural whim. The twist—a clockwise shift at each of its 150 floors—will reduce umbrella-busting gusts of wind at street level by directing most of the wind upward along the channels. Rounded skyscrapers also sway less than rectangular buildings because wind pushes evenly on all sides. Contractors broke ground on the building in June; at 2,000 feet and with 1,193 condos, it will be the tallest residential building in the world (tall enough to see the curvature of the planet from the top floors!) when it’s completed in 2011. ...

Steve Jobs hailed by Fortune Magazine as most powerful person in business

Ron — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:11:00 -0800
#1.Steve Jobs
Chairman and CEO, Apple

During the first two decades of his remarkable 30-year career, the Apple Inc. founder twice altered the direction of the computer industry. In 1977 the Apple II kicked off the PC era, and the graphical user interface launched by Macintosh in 1984 has been aped by every other computer since. Along the way Jobs conceived of "desktop publishing," gave the world the laser printer, and pioneered personal computer networks. As a side gig he bankrolled Pixar, which fostered the development of the technology and a brand-new business model for creating computer-animated feature films.

Since returning to Apple in 1997, he has changed the dynamics of consumer electronics with the iPod, and persuaded the music industry, the television networks, and Hollywood to distribute their wares with the iTunes Music Store. With his hugely successful Apple Stores, he gave the big-box boys a lesson in high-margin, high-touch retailing. And this year, at the height of his creative and promotional powers, Jobs orchestrated Apple's entry into the cellular telephone business with the iPhone. ...

What I'm optimistic about (and not), by Ray Kurzweil

Ron — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:34:00 -0800
Optimism exists on a continuum in between confidence and hope. Let me take these in order.

I am confident that the acceleration and expanding purview of information technology will solve within twenty years the problems that now preoccupy us. -- Consider energy. We are awash in energy (10,000 times more than required to meet all our needs falls on Earth) but we are not very good at capturing it. That will change with the full nanotechnology-based assembly of macro objects at the nano scale, controlled by massively parallel information processes, which will be feasible within twenty years. Even though our energy needs are projected to triple within that time, we'll capture that .0003 of the sunlight needed to meet our energy needs with no use of fossil fuels, using extremely inexpensive, highly efficient, lightweight, nano-engineered solar panels, and we'll store the energy in highly distributed (and therefore safe) nanotechnology-based fuel cells. Solar power is now providing 1 part in 1,000 of our needs, but that percentage is doubling every two years, which means multiplying by 1,000 in twenty years.

Almost all the discussions I've seen about energy and its consequences (such as global warming) fail to consider the ability of future nanotechnology-based solutions to solve this problem. This development will be motivated not just by concern for the environment but also by the $2 trillion we spend annually on energy. This is already a major area of venture funding.

Consider health. As of just recently, we have the tools to reprogram biology. This is also at an early stage but is progressing through the same exponential growth of information technology, which we see in every aspect of biological progress. The amount of genetic data we have sequenced has doubled every year, and the price per base pair has come down commensurately. The first genome cost a billion dollars. The National Institutes of Health is now starting a project to collect a million genomes at $1,000 apiece. We can turn genes off with RNA interference, add new genes (to adults) with new reliable forms of gene therapy, and turn on and off proteins and enzymes at critical stages of disease progression. We are gaining the means to model, simulate, and reprogram disease and aging processes as information processes. In ten years, these technologies will be 1,000 times more powerful than they are today, and it will be a very different world, in terms of our ability to turn off disease and aging. ...

OLPC "Give One Get One" Video

Ron — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:05:00 -0800
I recommend viewing this short 30-second video about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) "Give One Get One" project. See the previous article posted to SCIY for more details about this very worthy project. ~ ronjon

US Sales of OLPC "Give 1 Get 1 Program" begins today! - Highly recommended!

Ron — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:05:00 -0800

One learning child. One connected child. One laptop at a time.
Between November 12 and November 26, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. During this time, you can donate the revolutionary XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life in recognition of your contribution. ...

Kim and I just placed our order for this. Not only is $200 of it tax deductible, but T-Mobile is also giving you one year of complimentary HotSpot WiFi access with your order, more than a $350 value! I highly recommend this amazing, state of the art computer. ~ ronjon

Eco Machines: Biomimicry in wastewater treatment

Ron — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:46:00 -0800
I can vouch for John Todd's research. I knew him back in the 70's and was impressed then with the quality of his work. His "Eco Machines" are the outcome of 30 years of research and trial and error experimentation. ~ ronjon

Social responsibility, sustainability, and 'natural capitalism' are becoming new models for governments and corporations in the 21st century...

The ECO Machine - a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage and industrial waste to re-use quality. An important consideration as fresh water becomes one of the most important commodities in the new millennium...ECO Machines bring advanced wastewater treatment technology, and unsurpassed aesthetic, economic, and environmental advantages to companies, communities, and resorts both at home and internationally.

ECO Machines accelerate nature's own water purification process. Unlike chemical-based systems, ECO Machines incorporate helpful bacteria, fungi, plants, snails, clams, and fish that thrive by breaking down and digesting organic pollutants, pollutants that normally deprive the water of oxygen. This clean, simple approach efficiently transforms high-strength industrial wastewater and sewage into water clean enough to be recycled for reuse. ...

What If Cold Fusion Is Real?

Ron — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:59:00 -0700
In his preface to an earlier SCIY article, RYD commented:

"There is something sweet and endearing with the human touch in these pieces. Could not that human touch become reassuring that, there is hope for us when we engage ourselves in our daily activities with a sense of commitment and conviction, the qualities that can elevate us? ..."

Imo, the following article also has some of that quality. Although it's nearly 10 years old, ongoing experiments are reopening the possibility that so-called cold fusion really does exist. I'll reference some of these recent results in a reply to this article. ~ ronjon

"It was the most notorious scientific experiment in recent memory - in 1989, the two men who claimed to have discovered the energy of the future were condemned as imposters and exiled by their peers. Can it possibly make sense to reopen the cold fusion investigation? A surprising number of researchers already have. ..."

The Global Consciousness Project (EGG)

Ron — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:35:00 -0700
The Global Consciousness Project, also called the EGG Project, is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others. This website introduces methods, technology, and empirical results under the "Scientific Work" menu below, and gives background, interpretations, and implications under "Aesthetic View".

We have been collecting data from a global network of random event generators since August, 1998. The network has grown to about 65 host sites around the world running random colors per egg per sec custom software that reads the output of physical random number generators and records a 200-bit trial sum once every second, continuously over months and years. The data are transmitted over the internet to a server in Princeton, NJ, USA, where they are archived for later analysis. Individual data create a random tapestry of color. The dot below indicates their global coherence.

Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We have learned that when millions of us share intentions and emotions the GCP/EGG network shows correlations. We can interpret this as evidence for participation in a growing global consciousness. It suggests we have the capability and responsibility for conscious evolution. ...

Virtual worlds catching on in workplace

Ron — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:40:00 -0700
... Advocates say virtual worlds offer new ways for people to collaborate and foster workplace interaction in an age of dispersed employees. Companies can also save on travel time and cut down on the greenhouse gases fueling global warming...

Most corporations have yet to take the first few steps. Even consumer sites such as Second Life that have attracted a lot of press attention see relatively low traffic... just 340,000 unique visitors from the United States in August, a relatively small number compared with other big-name Internet sites. ...

"In virtual worlds, we notice people mingle like they do in real life," said Hughes. "The pre-event mingle gets to be very important."

Sun Microsystems has a project it began in January entitled MPK20, a name that refers to the first virtual building. It's an addition to 19 real buildings at Sun's Menlo Park campus. MPK20 has about seven rooms and is being used by its developers for team meetings. Other small groups will be invited starting in November. -- In the "team room," workers post documents they are working on and can speak to one another. Nicole Yankelovich, principal investigator, said the benefit is the serendipitous social interaction employees in different locations can share. On any given day, more than 50 percent of Sun's personnel work remotely, and employees say they miss person-to-person exchange, Yankelovich said. After virtual meetings, small groups form spontaneously to continue discussions. ...

Laptop With a Mission Widens Its Audience, by David Pogue, NYT

Ron — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:52:00 -0700

Wearing a new hat in Galadima, a hamlet in Abuja, Nigeria [photo added by ronjon]

In November, you’ll be able to buy a new laptop that’s spillproof, rainproof, dustproof and drop-proof. It’s fanless, it’s silent and it weighs 3.2 pounds. One battery charge will power six hours of heavy activity, or 24 hours of reading. The laptop has a built-in video camera, microphone, memory-card slot, graphics tablet, game-pad controllers and a screen that rotates into a tablet configuration.

And this laptop will cost $200... It’s an effort by One Laptop Per Child (laptop.org) to develop a very low-cost, high-potential, extremely rugged computer for the two billion educationally underserved children in poor countries...

OLPC slightly turned its strategy when it decided to offer the machine for sale to the public in the industrialized world — for a period of two weeks, in November. The program is called “Give 1, Get 1,” and it works like this. You pay $400 (www.xogiving.org). One XO laptop (and a tax deduction) comes to you by Christmas, and a second is sent to a student in a poor country. ...

Imagine Peace Tower, an artistic vision by Yoko Ono, dedicated to John Lennon

Ron — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:23:00 -0700

The new IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in Iceland

I dedicate this light tower to John Lennon
my love for you is forever

Yoko Ono
Videy Island, Reykjavik, Iceland
October 9th 2007

Bright Future Ahead for Organic TVs

Ron — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:23:00 -0700
At a time when the screen size of television sets is growing so fast that it appears headed to eclipse that of movie theater screens, the latest breakthrough in display technology has come in the form of an ultraslim 11-inch (28-centimeter) screen that is a mere 0.12 inch (three millimeters) thick at its thinnest point.

The innovation in Sony's new XEL-1 television is its use of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology that promises advanced levels of contrast and brightness, a broad spectrum of color reproduction and a rapid video response rate. OLED technology is also touted for its environmental friendliness. ...

Buy a cheap laptop, give one to world's poor kids

Ron — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:39:00 -0700
A computer intended to improve education for children in developing countries is to be offered to western buyers. -- Engineers at the One Laptop Per Child project, based in the US, have built a low-cost computer designed to work in some of the world's most undeveloped areas. Until now only governments have been invited to buy the machines, but in an attempt to jump-start the project, western consumers will soon be able to buy their own version.

In return for spending $399 (£197), customers will receive their own laptop as well as paying for a second computer for children in deprived parts of world. To begin with, the machines will be donated to youngsters in countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti and Rwanda.

The machine, conceived by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, incorporates a number of innovations, including a high-resolution screen and low power consumption. It can be powered by solar energy, foot pump or a clockwork charger. The idea is that access to learning aids and hi-tech equipment will help children in some of the world's poorest countries learn skills that can lift them out of poverty. The scheme will run for two weeks in November, and only in North America.

Pitroda calls for 1,000 community radio stations in a year

Ron — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:07:00 -0700
Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission Sam Pitroda has called for at least 1,000 community radio stations to be set up in the country in a year's time. -- In a video message to participants at a media workshop in Auroville here, Pitroda also called for greater awareness of radio's usefulness.

Expressing concern over the ban on news and current events under India's radio policy, Pitroda said he believed that "the community radio can fulfil its objectives to facilitate exchange and bring out more information on events of local importance". -- He emphasised the "need for accessible and affordable technology to enable a larger number of CR (community radio) stations".

Is community radio working in India? Not really, if participants at the workshop are to be heard. -- It is much easier to get a commercial license for an FM station than a license for community radio, activists said at a two-day workshop here, pointing out that India's current radio regulation is heavily tilted against community radio.

Entheon Village at Burning Man

Ron — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 14:59:00 -0700

Entheon, meaning “a place to discover the spirit within,” is an effort to promote sustainable cultural re-evolution that heals relationships between the people of the earth and our planet. The mission of Entheon is to demonstrate a future in which sustainability, ecological responsibility, environmental stewardship, and meditative and mystical consciousness are a welcomed and integrated part of society, and where art, spirituality and creativity is central to that vision.

[The] Entheon [camp at Burning Man 2007] will be a grounded gathering place offering an intellectual, therapeutic, artistic and creative cornucopia of interactive opportunities. Lectures, workshops, renewable energy demonstrations, visionary art, zen meditation in a zendo, holotropic breathwork sessions, and performance come together in the spirit of celebration to co-create our shared vision of global healing and a broader awareness of ecological responsibility. ...

Cellulose & nanotubes combine to create cheap, flexible & paper-thin batteries

Ron — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:22:00 -0700
ELECTRICITY-storage devices are getting more flexible, in a literal sense as well as in their design. This week sees the unveiling of the most robust but flexible battery ever. Pulickel Ajayan and his colleagues at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York made it by mixing carbon nanotubes (cylindrical, electrically conductive molecules made of carbon atoms) with cellulose, the stuff of paper. The result, which they report in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is an energy store that is cheap, flexible and paper-thin. ...

Is Your Printer Polluting the Air You Breathe?

Ron — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:51:00 -0700
Be advised: researchers from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, have discovered that certain laser printers emit high concentrations of tiny particles into the air. "People could be exposed to dangerous levels of ultrafine particles emitted by printers if they are in an environment that is poorly ventilated and the printer operation is frequent or continuous," says Lidia Morawska, a physicist and co-author of the study, which appears in this month's online issue of the American Chemical Society's Environmental Science & Technology. ...

Is Science Fiction obsolete in an age when we can't even predict the present?

Ron — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 10:41:00 -0700

...it was around that time, the mid-1990s, that fiction—all fiction—finally became obsolete as a delivery system for big ideas. Whatever the cause—dwindling attention spans, underfunded schools, something to do with the Internet—the fact is these days that if a Top Thinker wakes up one morning aghast at man’s inhumanity to man, he’s probably going to dash off a 300-word op-ed and e-mail it to The New York Times, or better still, just stick it up on his blog, typos and all, not cancel his appointments for the next seven years so he can bang out War and Peace in a shed. If one truly has something to say, seems to be the consensus, then why not just come out and say it? If your goal is to persuade and be believed about the truth of a particular point, then what would possess you to choose to work in a genre whose very name, fiction, explicitly warns the reader not to believe a word she reads?

This trend in global epistemology would probably have made science fiction irrelevant all by itself, I reckon. But the genre has an even bigger dragon to slay with its new profusion of cheesy, dwarf-wrought superswords: the scarcity of foreseeable future.

The world is speeding up, you may have noticed, and the rate at which it’s speeding up is speeding up, and the natural human curiosity that science fiction was invented to meet is increasingly being met by reality. Why would I spend my money on a book about amazing-but-fake technology when we’re only a few weeks away from Steve Jobs unveiling a cell phone that doubles as a jetpack and a travel iron? As for the poor authors, well, who would actually lock themselves in a shed for years to try to predict the future when, in this age, you can’t even predict the present? ...

Second Life: An alternate universe

Ron — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:30:00 -0700
It's 1 a.m., and the "Dublin" nightclub is packed. Women in trendy ball gowns and men in miniskirts dance to Bon Jovi. Simon Stevens spins his wheelchair across the room, then leaps up and starts dancing, a move he can execute only here in Second Life, a 3-D virtual world that Stevens roams on his PC screen, using an avatar - a graphic rendering of himself, liberated from his cerebral palsy. "I flourish in Second Life," says the 33-year-old, who heads a disability-consulting firm called Enable Enterprises, out of his home in England. "It's no game - it's a serious tool." Rhonda Lillie and Paul Hawkins live thousands of miles apart - she in California, he in Wales - and until this week, had never met face to face. But they've been dating for more than two years - in Second Life. The detachment of meeting through their avatars allowed them to open up to one another in a way they might never have done in the real world. "We felt like we could go in and really be ourselves," Lillie says.

Anshe Chung is a virtual land baroness with a real-life fortune. The woman behind the Anshe avatar is Ailin Graef, a former language teacher living near Frankfurt, Germany. Three years ago she started buying and developing virtual land in Second Life to see whether its virtual economy could sustain a real life. Turns out it can: Chung became Second Life's first millionaire in 2006. Her business, Anshe Chung Studios, with a staff of 60, buys virtual property and builds homes or other structures that it rents or sells to other denizens of Second Life. ...

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC): Beyond the standard model

Ron — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 01:00:00 -0700

19 Oct 2006. Detail of the sensor from the first half tracker inner barrel (TIB).

... Particle physics stands on the brink of a new era. Research using the LHC will make the first exploration of physics in the TeV energy range. There are good reasons to hope that the LHC will find new physics beyond the standard model, but no guarantees. The most one can say for now is that the LHC has the potential to revolutionize particle physics, and that in a few years' time we should know what course this revolution will take. Will there be a Higgs boson, or not? Will space reveal new properties at small distances, such as extra dimensions or supersymmetry? Will experiments at the LHC cast light on some fundamental cosmological questions, such as the origin of matter or the nature of dark matter? Whatever the answers to these questions might be or whatever surprises the LHC might spring, it will surely set the agenda for the next steps in particle physics.

TED: Inspired talks by he world's greatest thinkers and doers

Ron — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:35:00 -0700
Thanks to yatanti for recommending this site:

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. -- The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 100 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted...

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. Over time, you'll see us add talks and performances from other events, and solicit submissions from you, as well. ...

Towards an Ecological World-view, by Edward Goldsmith

Ron — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:12:00 -0700
For me, the most fundamental tenet of the world-view of modernism, with which we have all been imbued since our most tender childhood, is that all benefits are man-made, the product of scientific, technological and industrial progress, and made available via the market system. Thus health is seen as something that is dispensed in hospitals, or at least by the medical profession, with the aid of the latest technological devices and pharmaceutical preparations and education is seen as a commodity that can only be acquired in schools and universities. Not surprisingly, a country's wealth is measured by its per capita Gross National Product (GNP), which provides a rough measure of its ability to provide such man-made commodities, a principle faithfully reflected in modern economics.

For economists trained in these ideas, natural benefits - those provided by the normal workings of biospheric processes, assuring the stability of our climate, the fertility of our soil, the replenishment of our water supplies and the integrity and cohesion of our families and communities - are not regarded as benefits at all; indeed, our economists attribute to them no value of any kind. It follows that to be deprived of these non-benefits cannot constitute a 'cost' and the natural systems that provide them can thereby be destroyed with total impunity. ...

Apple tops Business Week's list of World's 50 Most Innovative Companies

Ron — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:54:00 -0700
Not so long ago, no conversation about innovation would be complete without the story of 3M inventor Art Fry’s eureka moment that led to the Post-it Note. Today, that tale, which verges on cliche, has been almost universally replaced by the story of the iPod, Apple’s omnipresent icon of design.

It should come as little surprise, then, that Apple tops the BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for the third year in a row. That sort of staying power speaks volumes about the sort of innovation that matters today. Unlike the Post-it Note, which proves the value of lone inventors, the iPod epitomizes today’s innovation sensibilities. These include the ascendance of design, the focus on the user’s experience, and the power of ecosystems: The iPod is a hit because it works so seamlessly with the iTunes software. The company’s much-anticipated iPhone, which launches in June, will likely keep Apple high on our list next year too. ...

ENVIRONMENT-JAPAN: Quake Devastates Nuclear Power Plans

Ron — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:19:00 -0700
TOKYO, Jul 18 (IPS) - Reports of radiation leakages at a nuclear power plant, following the Niigata earthquake on Monday, have raised widespread public alarm and dealt a devastating blow to the government’s plans to boost the nuclear power industry, both domestically and abroad.

''The problems now being reported from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant are deeply alarming. They prove that Japan is not prepared for a nuclear power disaster especially during an earthquake and can never be,’’ Prof. Hiroaki Koide, nuclear safety specialist at Kyoto University, told IPS.

The quake left nine people dead, more than 1,000 injured and forced thousands out of their homes and into makeshift shelters. -- Reports trickling out in the aftermath of the 6.8 Richter temblor show that at least 50 adverse events had occurred in the area that had, till now, been considered as a site least likely to be affected by an earthquake. But the epicentre of the quake was less than 10 km away. ...

Fooled by visions of the future

Ron — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:32:00 -0700
Thanks to RYD for referring us to this article.
_____________
SINCE THE 1960s, politicians and pundits have predicted the imminent arrival of a digital utopia in which robots would do the washing up and we would live in peace and harmony in an electronically-connected global village, thanks to the Net. -- So why are the utopian visions of 40 years ago strangely similar to the ones we hold today? Because business and political leaders have consistently pushed a carefully orchestrated fantasy of the future to distract us from the present, says Richard Barbrook, who explores the subject in Imaginary Futures — From Thinking Machines to the Global Village.

Mr. Barbrook, a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Westminster, U.K., has been researching this topic for more than four years. What he wants is to show how ideology is used to warp time. "In other words," he says, "how we're told that the importance of a new technology lies not in what it can do in the here and now, but what the more advanced models might be able to do one day." He is particularly interested in exposing the "nonsense of technological determinism," which he describes as "the theory that someone builds a machine, the machine sprouts legs and runs around the world changing it." -- Mr. Barbrook believes we can trace today's deterministic views of technology to the Cold War; when the Soviet Union and the United States dedicated huge resources to demonstrating which empire better represented progress and modernity. During that period, the U.S. repackaged the space rockets, atomic reactors, and computer mainframes it was developing in the pursuit of atomic Armageddon into prototypes of better things to come.

"Nasa's spaceships would evolve into luxurious interplanetary passenger liners," says Mr. Barbrook. "General Electric's nuclear fission reactors would become fusion plants providing limitless energy for all. IBM's computers were prototypes of artificial intelligence." Soon, the implication went, loyal obedient robots would be at humanity's beck and call. ...

MIT Wizards Zap Electricity Through the Air

Ron — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:33:00 -0700
Researchers at MIT have figured out how to transfer power wirelessly, a technology they've dubbed "WiTricity." Potential applications for WiTricity include powering cell phones, laptops, household robots and other battery-run devices. However, before WiTricity enters the mainstream, there is still work to be done, as the group's tested device operated at only 40 percent efficiency.

...It was demonstrated by a team of researchers from MIT's Department of Physics, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN), and was reported in Thursday's edition of Science Express, the online publication of the journal Science . ...

Apple: The third act

Ron — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:33:00 -0700
...at the dawn of a new era of digital lives in which computers are only part of an expanding consumer-electronics industry, the odds are on Mr Jobs and Apple as the winner. In the past six years Apple, with its iPod player and iTunes service, has come to lead the (legal) digital-music industry roughly as Microsoft dominates the PC industry with Windows. On June 29th Apple will enter an even bigger market when it launches a new mobile phone, called the iPhone.

Ostensibly, Mr Jobs's ambitions for the iPhone are modest. He expects 10m to be sold by the end of next year, about 1% of the world market for handsets. Apple has sold ten times as many iPods. But these numbers belie the significance of the iPhone—and Mr Jobs's ambitions for it. Rather, it represents the latest step in the transformation of Apple, from a computer-maker to a consumer-electronics company, which Mr Jobs made official this year with the symbolic dropping of the word “Computer” from the firm's name. His success in this transformation so far, and the expectation of a new phase thanks to the iPhone, explain why Apple, one decade after nearly collapsing, is now worth more than $100 billion and is to be included in America's blue-chip elite, the Standard & Poor's 100 index. ...

Cancer Risks from Mobile Phone Microwaves Confirmed

Ron — Mon, 28 May 2007 15:36:00 -0700
...Evidence linking weak electromagnetic radiation (EMR) to leukaemia and other cancers has been fast accumulating in recent years... Such ‘non-thermal' effects of EMR – due to levels well below that sufficient to bring about any heating - have been observed even before World War II...

During the cold war period, a four-fold excess of cancer cases was diagnosed among the staff of the American Embassy in Moscow that had been secretly irradiated with microwaves at well below the threshold set in current guidelines. The US State Department study on this episode was described in a paper published in 1997. This was among the earliest evidence for non-thermal effects of microwaves, and many studies are now confirming the high cancer risks of people exposed to microwaves from mobile phone base stations and transmitters around the world. Microwaves are no different from EMRs in the lower frequency range in that respect; except that microwaves may be even more potent in promoting cancer and other illnesses ...

Life in the Undergrowth: A New View of Earth's Invertebrates

Ron — Wed, 23 May 2007 19:36:00 -0700
Amazing! Astounding! Utterly cool. Hi-tech photography makes this the best David Attenborough nature series ever. The subject is earth's invertebrates, or in other words, the creepy crawly things that fill the woods, bushes and undergrowth. Insects, spiders and their kin. The diversity of these beings is vast, and their bizarre stories untold. Attenborough and the BBC spend a lot of money and time traipsing around the world using really cool infrared cameras to see at night, or pinhole cameras to see up close, or ultra-fast cameras to catch wings flapping. The view they capture of these unnoticed critters is absolutely stunning. They invert the usual view of bugs by filming them from their level or below. It turns out that when you can place your camera so that you literally look up to an ant while seeing it in its environment, then you look up to it with new respect. The bugs seem more like the animals they really are. When all their hairs, scales, and whiskers are visible, their true animal nature can be seen. ...

Spy Chips: Be(a)ware of how your belongings could track you

Ron — Wed, 23 May 2007 19:28:00 -0700
While it may occasionally occur to workers that their [employee ID and access] badges can squeal on their movements, there's one place they probably don't expect to find an RFID reader: the bathroom. But a company called Woodward Laboratories has found a way to embed a tag reader into a product they call the "iHygiene Perfect Pump." It's a liquid soap dispenser that doubles as an employee badge reader and monitoring device. To unsuspecting employees, the device appears to be a perfectly normal soap dispenser. But hidden within its sleek plastic exterior is an electronic spy that captures the ID badge number of the person standing at the sink...The handwashing surveillance system requires employees to wear RFID-enabled badges, but soon employees' actual uniforms could report on them instead. The nation's top two uniform rental companies, CIntas (which clothes workers at Starbucks, Disney, Sears, and Wal-Mart) and Ameripride (with clients like Ooutback Steakhouse, 3M, and Cherolet) have quietly begun slipping spychips into employee uniforms to keep track of washing and rental logistics. The tags come encased in sealed plastic disks that can withstand years of commercial laundering, yet still beam out their unique ID numbers whenever they come within range of a reader device. ...

Eco-Restore.com: Water Vortexing Systems

Ron — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:19:00 -0700
...Based on ideas by Viktor Schauberger regarding water as a “living substance”, the team... has developed a simple and easy way to enhance the quality of Water. Installation of these pipes [is] just before the exit point in existing plumbing, such as a faucet or shower head. This pipe is gradually formed by a process in which a machine makes a series of indentations in the form of a spiral down the length of a pipe. Inside the pipe a scale-like surface is created to support the rhythmic flow of the water. In this way the water is directed to fold into itself allowing suction forces and whirling to occur. An outstanding energetic quality is produced by the pipes on the water. The pipes are tested randomly by the manufacturer to a point of 10 bars of pressure. ...

World'sNest: Sustainable Living, Solar Architecture

Ron — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:21:00 -0700
This one's a little too fancy for my tastes, but they seem to have the $ to experiment with and demo some pretty cutting edge sustainability technologies.

Angel's Nest and Worlds Nest, the sustainable energy demonstration showcase in Taos, New Mexico, built by Robert Plarr and Victoria Peters, incorporates wind and solar power, a renewable hydrogen fueling station, and integrated greenhouses in a unique closed loop, grid-independent energy and water replenishment cycle. ...

Changes in lifestyle can slow warming, UN scientists say

Ron — Sun, 06 May 2007 16:00:00 -0700
The worst effects of global warming can be blunted if average people make lifestyle changes that conserve energy and if the world's nations show the political will to address the problem, a panel of international scientists said Friday.

The technology to slow climate change exists in the form of renewable-energy sources like solar, wind and hydroelectric power and making cars, homes and factories more energy efficient, but governments must adopt policies that encourage people and businesses to embrace them, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. -- At the same time, the scientists said businesses could be encouraged to quit generating carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming, with the establishment of carbon taxes equal to $100 per ton of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere.

The panel also called for better management of the world's forests, the loss of which through deforestation could deprive the planet of a vital "sink" for absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that contributes to rising temperatures. -- Failure to take action, the panel warned, could result in dire consequences for future generations.

Environmentalists push for renewable energy at UN IPCC in Bangkok

Ron — Thu, 03 May 2007 14:55:00 -0700
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. network of 2,000 scientists that has produced two landmark reports on global warming this year, was working on a third study — this one on mitigation measures — for release on Friday. -- A draft of the report features a lengthy list of possible solutions: improved energy efficiency like hybrid vehicles, renewable sources such as solar- and hydropower, cleaner-burning coal and biofuels, reforestation and even nuclear energy — an option the United States is pushing to give greater emphasis in the final document.

But not all the proposals are equal, environmentalists argue, saying some — such as nuclear power — are dangerous, while technologies such as renewable energy sources are not given proper emphasis. ... The green lobby is a varied group, but the lion's share of them insist concern over global warming should not lead to increased reliance on nuclear energy. ...

Philip K. Dick's Divine Interference, by Eric Davis

Ron — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:30:00 -0700
...Unlike most religious seers, Dick did not approach his visions with anything like certitude. Dick distrusted reification of any sort (his novels constantly wage war against the process that turns people and ideas into things), and so he refused to solidify his experiences into a belief system. ...Dick approached his theophany (or "in-breaking of God") as artistic material, reworking it in his writings with an artist's commitment to irony, craft, and a political bite. Even in his private journals, he constantly liquefies his revelations, writing with a modern thinker's sense of the tentativeness of speculative thought.

... Dick's Black Iron Prison imaginatively captured the "disciplinary apparatus" of power analyzed by historian Michel Foucault. Demonstrating that prisons, mental institutions, schools, and military establishments all share similar organizations of space and time, Foucault argued that a "technology of power" was distributed throughout social space, enmeshing human subjects at every turn. Foucault argued that liberal social reforms are only cosmetic brush-ups of an underlying mechanism of control. As Dick put it, "The Empire never ended."

"...today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. [10]"

As Jean Baudrillard has argued into the ground, simulation rather than representation has become the defining characteristic of cultural signs and artifacts in our time. ... The technological simulacrum creates its own reality, which Baudrillard calls the "hyperreal," a kind of ersatz parody of Plato's ideal world of forms. For example, when you download a printer driver from the Internet or record a CD onto digital tape, you do not "copy" the information so much as replicate a hyperreal object.

... As an exhausted rationalist, Baudrillard simply abandoned himself to a morbid celebration of the pixel apocalypse, giving up any notion of resistance or transformation while ignoring the messy realities that gum up the works of all such grand intellectual scenarios. But Dick never gave up his commitment to the "authentically human," the "viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new." He also recognized that simulacra lie deep in our souls, and that we are not so far from the spiritual paradigms of the ancient world, with their camouflage spirits, talking images, and automata gods. And so Dick redeployed the gnostic struggle for authenticity and freedom within the hard-sell universe of simulation. The world is a prison not because of its materiality—which was the opinion of the ancient Gnostics—but because of the hidden orders of power and control it houses: the various corporate, political, and ideological archons herding us into increasingly compelling synthetic worlds. ...

Apple ships 100 millionth iPod

Ron — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 09:42:00 -0700
Apple said today (Monday, April 9) that it has sold its 100 millionth iPod, marking a major milestone in the product's history. -- Since introducing the iPod in November 2001, the company has unveiled more than 10 new iPod models. The music player has also sparked an ecosystem of more than 4,000 accessories, ranging from fashionable cases to speaker systems. More than 70 percent of 2007 model cars in the United States currently offer iPod connectivity.

Apple's iTunes Store has seen comparable success in selling items from its catalog of more than 5 million songs, 350 television shows and 400 movies. The company says it has sold more than 2.5 billion songs, 50 million TV shows and 1.3 million movies, making it the world's most popular online store of the digital media. ...

Forty Initiatives that are changing our world (Resurgence Mag.)

Ron — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:12:00 -0700
This informative list of annotated links compiled by Resurgence Magazine includes interesting initiatives in the areas of Activism, Agricultural Development, Ecology, Economics, Education & Community, the Internet, Political & Corporate, Publishing, and Scientific Principles. The few I’ve had a chance to check out so far look like they’re indeed doing important work; e.g., ISEC (the International society for Ecology & Culture), which I’ll post more info about in my next article. — Recommended.

'In Our Own Image: Humanity's Quest for Divinity via Technology,' by Debashis Chowdhury

Ron — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 13:43:00 -0700
This looks like an interesting book. ~ ron

Once in a few billion years, the conditions are right for life to transcend itself into a higher level of existence. Having spent more than a billion years in the form of single walled bacteria-like (Prokaryotic) cells, a happy set of circumstances happened about 1.5 Billion years ago that gave rise to Eukaryotic cells with a well defined cell nucleus. Those were heady times, and the Eukaryotic cells then went on to create all multi-cellular creatures, including plants and animals including humans. The experience of what it meant to live life changed completely!...

The exciting times are back again! In this very century, mankind will invent the technologies that will give us capabilities we have thus far associated only with Divinity. What is lacking now is a level of wisdom, and unity of purpose amongst us humans. If we can develop this transcendental wisdom, and inculcate a joint sense of identity and purpose as humanity, ours is the opportunity to transform our collective existence into a vastly more powerful presence. ...

Dream Farm 2 - Story So Far: Its conceptual underpinnings and update with a potential site in mind

Ron — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:47:00 -0700
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho: "Many people have asked what exactly is Dream Farm 2. There are several answers. First of all, Dream Farm 2 is a model of an integrated, ‘zero-emission’, ‘zero-waste’ highly productive farm that maximises the use of renewable energies and turns ‘wastes’ into food and energy resources, thereby completely obviating the need for fossil fuels. It is our answer to the energy crisis and climate change, and more. It is a microcosm of a different way of being and becoming in the world, and in that respect, nothing short of a social revolution.

In a way, I have dedicated the past 20 years to developing the idea, and trying to live up to it. -- The challenge now is to make Dream Farm 2 a reality, to put flesh on the bare bones of the diagram, so we can start building the best when the site is agreed. Watch this space. ..."

Resurgence Magazine: Promoting creativity, ecology, spirituality and frugality

Ron — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:38:00 -0700
...Resurgence publish[es] articles that are on the cutting edge of current thinking, promoting creativity, ecology, spirituality and frugality.

While the corporate world advocates "free trade" Resurgence questions trade without responsibility and money without morality. While our governments define the "national interest" and its politicians pursue power at all costs, Resurgence argues for politics with principles. While technology invades our lives in the name of speed and efficiency, Resurgence advocates science with a soul.

But Resurgence not only offers a critique of the old paradigm, it gives working models for an emerging new paradigm. Resurgence is packed full of positive ideas about the theory and practice of good living: permaculture, community supported agriculture, local economics, ecological building, sacred architecture, art in the environment, small schools and deep ecology. ...

The Institute of Science in Society (ISIS): Science Society Sustainability

Ron — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:37:00 -0700
The Institute of Science in Society says it's "The only radical science magazine on earth." I don't know if that's literally true, but at first look, this does seem worth a serious look. Thanks to koantum for telling us about it.

“SIS is the antidote to scientific mumbo-jumbo. It treats people as grown ups - capable of understanding and facing up to difficult issues - whilst demanding that scientists describe the challenges of science in terms people can understand. Every idea that SIS explores is an advocacy of good science. A must-read for all who wish to change society for the better.” Alan Simpson, Member of Parliament, UK ...

Powerful Ways to Save and Replace Oil, by Amory Lovins

Ron — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:45:00 -0700
The world uses a cubic mile of oil a year, costing almost $2 trillion. Oil and cars are the world's biggest and most entrenched industries. Yet an inexorable half-century transition beyond oil has begun, squeezing oil between efficient use and alternative supplies...

Fleet turnovers take time: putting the first half-million hybrid cars on the road took nearly a decade. Yet in 2007 20 new hybrid models will enter the American market, and operating efficiency will finally become entrenched as carmakers' top design priority, locking in oil savings for decades. Biofuels, too, will continue double-digit growth as Brazil's 2006 oil independence and Sweden's 2020 off-oil goal spur emulation. ...

Rocky Mountain Institute Helps Hawaii Update Its Energy Strategy

Ron — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:09:00 -0700
...Since the late 1960s, [Hawaii] has relied on oil to meet roughly 90 percent of its energy demand. The cost of this oil dependence translates to a higher overall cost of living, the nation's highest electricity prices, and very high gasoline prices. In September 2006, Hawaii's residential electricity revenues per kilowatt-hour ranged from 19.75 cents to 34 cents, with a statewide average of 24.24 cents compared to a national average of 10.92 cents. Overall, electricity costs were 21.51 cents per kilowatthour in Hawaii compared to the national average of 9.26 cents. Hawaii's gasoline prices consistently rank among the highest in the country. ...

Recognizing these vulnerabilities, the State crafted the first Hawaii Energy Strategy (HES) in 1995. The State's goal was to better understand the risks it faces due to its unique energy situation, and to propose recommendations for achieving its objectives of reduced oil dependence, lowered energy costs, increased environmental sustainability, and a diversified economic base. The strategy was updated in 2000 by Hawaii's Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism (DBEDT). This year, DBEDT retained Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) to help DBEDT craft HES 2007 and outline a strategy that will, among other things ...

2007 TED Conference: Report #2

Ron — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:40:00 -0800
...The first prize winner for 2007 is James Nachtwey, a remarkable war photographer who’s been described as a “one man human rights watch”. He’s been extensively honored for his work, winning numerous prizes for his work covering some of the most difficult images in the world.

He apologizes for using notes - “after spending an entire career trying to be invisible” speaking before a group is an “out of body” experience. The truth is, his images are so powerful and moving, I found it very hard to even follow his voice for much of his talk. As he said, “I have been a witness - these pictures are my testimony.” ...

2007 TED Conference now underway: Report #1

Ron — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:27:00 -0800
The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, & Design) conference in Monterey, CA, USA, brings together more than 1000 thought-leaders, movers and shakers for four days of learning, laughter and inspiration. -- The first TED in 1984 included the public unveiling of the Macintosh computer and the Sony compact disc, while mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals and AI guru Marvin Minsky outlined his powerful new model of the mind. Several influential members of the burgeoning 'digerati' community were also there, including Nicholas Negroponte and Stewart Brand.

Those who have spoken at TED include Bill Gates, Frank Gehry, Jane Goodall, Billy Graham, Herbie Hancock, Murray Gell-Mann, Larry Ellison. Yet often the real stars have been the unexpected: Li Lu, a key organizer of the Tiananmen Square student protest, Aimee Mullins, a Paralympics competitor who tried out a new pair of artificial legs on-stage, or Nathan Myrrhvold speaking not about Microsoft platforms, but about dinosaur sex. ...

First Academic Playstation 3 Supercomputing Cluster

Ron — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:40:00 -0800
...The Sony Playstation 3, Xbox and Nintendo Wii have captivated a generation of computer gamers with bold graphics and rapid-fire animation. But these high-tech toys can do a lot more than just play games. At North Carolina State University, Dr. Frank Mueller imagined using the power of the new PS3 to create a high-powered computing environment for a fraction of the cost of the supercomputers on the market. ...

Sony's new "Gaming 3.0" PS3 virtual community "Home"

Ron — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:50:00 -0800
...Sony Computer Entertainment' Phil Harrison officially opened the doors on "Home" for PS3. This unique avatar-based real-time virtual community will enter a large scale beta trial in April and the service itself (which will be found after a free download on the XMB) is scheduled to launch this fall.

...Game 1.0 was represented by the disconnected console and static game discs; Game 2.0 was brought to us by connected consoles (or PCs) that offered static content; but Game 3.0 takes connected consoles to a new level by leveraging online collaboration and user-generated content. Suddenly the content is dynamic and, as Sony says, Game 3.0 "puts the spotlight back on the consumer." Harrison explained that Sony was influenced by the ideas put forth by web 2.0 – sites such as MySpace and YouTube that are driven by user-generated content. Harrison also made clear that Sony is not trying to trademark Game 3.0; they simply want to get the developer and gaming communities thinking about a trend which Harrison believes "will power the next decade of growth in our industry." ...

The 'digital universe' reached 161 exabytes of data in 2006, now doubling every 16 mo.

Ron — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:06:00 -0800
Last year, 161 exabytes of digital information were created and copied, according to research firm IDC. Can't get your mind around that number? That's understandable. Try this -- that amount of information is equal to three million times the amount of information in all the books ever written. It's also equal to 12 stacks of books, each extending the 93 million miles between the Earth and the sun. -- And it's only going to continue to grow exponentially. According to IDC, the amount of information created and copied in 2010 will surge more than six fold to 988 exabytes. That amounts to a compound annual growth rate of 57%. -- An exabyte is one quintillion bytes or a billion gigabytes...

The largest component of the digital universe, IDC said, will be images captured worldwide by more than 1 billion devices, from digital cameras to camera phones, medical scanners, and security cameras. The number of images captured on consumer digital still cameras in 2006 exceeded 150 billion worldwide, while the number of images captured on cell phones hit nearly 100 billion, IDC said. Digital photography by 2010 will capture more than 500 billion images...

"This ever-growing mass of information is putting a considerable strain on the IT infrastructures we have in place today," said Mark Lewis, EMC executive VP and chief development officer, in a written statement. "This explosive growth will change the way organizations and IT professionals do their jobs, and the way we consumers use information." ...

Is Piracy Really Killing the Music Industry?

Ron — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 23:11:00 -0800
I stumbled upon this remarkable website a few weeks ago and have become a regular reader. Its author, Daniel Eran, imo is one of the most informed observers of the computer and digital entertainment industry, especially the ongoing battle between Microsoft, Linux and Apple. Highly recommended. ~ ron

Various music industry trade groups claim that piracy is killing their industry, and are suing file traders and the sites they use. Are music sales, revenue, and profits down? Are MP3 downloads preventing music sales or do they instead help advertise new music? Are paid music downloads profitable or are they still insignificant?

...researchers at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina reported the results of a study of file sharing, based on a review of the log reports of 1.75 million traded songs over a 17 week period compared to actual album sales. -- They determined that even massive file sharing appeared to have no negative effect on sales, and in some cases appeared to have a positive effect on purchases. Other studies have reported that file trading does have the negative affect on sales one would logically expect.

In any event, it is hard to argue against the fact that the recording industry can gain more ground by making CD and online purchases more appealing than it can through raising CD prices and suing children. -- Rather than seeking to raise prices in iTunes with so called market pricing, and continue to destroy the retail market for music with unrealistically high list prices, music labels need to focus on putting their product in front of their customers and making it appealing to buy. ...

Dark matter cosmologist Jerome Drexler pioneered nanotech laser recording media

Ron — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:45:00 -0800
Earlier in his career, dark matter cosmologist Jerome Drexler pioneered the laser recording of data... Jerome Drexler and Eric Bouldin invented a commercially successful nanotechnology product seven years before the first publication of the word "nanotechnology." ...

These days, Drexler is deeply involved in astro-cosmology research. In 2002 he discovered and developed the concept of "dark matter cosmology," based on Albert Einstein's 1905 Special Theory of Relativity.

Foreword to James Gardner's "The Intelligent Universe," by Ray Kurzweil

Ron — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:26:00 -0800
Ray Kurzweil wrote this article as the introduction to James Gardner's new book, "The Intelligent Universe: AI, ET, and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos." It's a good summary of Ray's latest thinking. Though its very techno-optimistic view is contrary to the post-modern skeptical flavor often presented on SCIY, I've been following Ray's thinking for years and continue to be impressed with his erudite scholarship. -- In any case, I believe it's an important function of SCIY to present viewpoints that are contrary to our own; to be skeptical of our own skepticism.

... It is remarkable to me that almost all of the discussions of cosmology fail to mention the role of intelligence. In the common cosmological view, intelligence is just a bit of froth, something interesting that happens on the sidelines of the great cosmic story. But in the standard view, whether the universe winds up or down, ends up in fire (a great crunch and new Big Bang), or ice (an ever-expanding and ultimately dead universe), or something in-between, depends only on measures of dark matter, dark energy, and other parameters we have yet to discover. That the story of the universe is a story yet to be written by the intelligence it will spawn is almost never mentioned. This book will help to change the common "unintelligent" view.

So what will we do when our intelligence is in the range of a google (10^100) cps? One thing we may do is to engineer new universes. Similarly, our universe may be the creation of some superintelligences in another universe. In this case, there was an intelligent designer of our universe--that designer would be the evolved intelligence of some other universe that created ours. Perhaps our universe is a science fair experiment of a student in another universe. (Reading the news of the day, you might get the impression that this erstwhile adolescent superintelligence who designed our universe is not going to get a very good grade on his or her project.)

But the evolution of intelligence here on Earth is actually going very well. All of the vagaries (and tragedies) of human history, such as two world wars, the cold war, the great depression, and other notable events, did not make even the slightest dent in the ongoing exponential progressions I previously mentioned. ...

Cyber officials: Chinese hackers attack 'anything and everything'

Ron — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:52:00 -0800
NORFOLK, Va. -- At the Naval Network Warfare Command here, U.S. cyber defenders track and investigate hundreds of suspicious events each day. But the predominant threat comes from Chinese hackers, who are constantly waging all-out warfare against Defense Department networks, Netwarcom officials said. - Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and sophistication, said a senior Netwarcom official, who spoke to reporters on background Feb 12. The conflict has reached the level of a campaign-style, force-on-force engagement, he said.

“They will exploit anything and everything,” the senior official said, referring to the Chinese hackers’ strategy. And although it is impossible to confirm the involvement of China’s government, the attacks are so deliberate, “it’s hard to believe it’s not government-driven,” the official said. - The motives of Chinese hackers run the gamut, including technology theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD networks for future action, the official said. ...

Regulating Nanotechnology and Designing the NGOs of the Future (WC)

Ron — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:49:00 -0800
...If, in fact, full-blown nanotechnology erupts into our lives in 20 years, instead of 50, the results are likely to be as disruptive as the first century of the Industrial Revolution, but compressed into a much shorter time period. And, given that it might, it is the duty of those of us who would prefer an unimaginable future to an unthinkable one to take seriously the responsibility of handling nanotechnology carefully.

But it's also important to remember that we have a huge advantage that our ancestors lacked as they struggled with the first Industrial Revolution: we have a history of technology, and we understand that what technologies are adopted and how they are used is a matter of societal choice. We have the power to imagine, to anticipate and ultimately to steer the development of nanotechnology. ...

Yamaha Divide: Foldable Electric Bike

Ron — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:54:00 -0800
...Being hyped as both an Object d’ Art for your home (it folds in half at the press of a button) and zippy commuter (uses an electric ‘smart power’ motor, based on something called the Passol motor unit). Free of petrol and oil apparently. Die-cast aluminium provides the curves and a Lithium-ion battery feeds the “permanent magnet synchronous motor“. ...

Jaron's World: Morphing Messages

Ron — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 12:42:00 -0800
This is a followup on an earlier SCIY article about Jaron Lanier's work.

Was I serious when I suggested that people might someday become more like cephalopods (see Jaron's World, April 2006)? At the time I was thinking about the way some cephalopods, such as the mimic octopus, can appear to morph into different objects. I wondered whether people using computers could someday pull off the same trick (within virtual reality, presumably) and how that ability might expand the range of human expression. My guess is that being able to turn into whatever comes into your mind—or, more profoundly, to simulate a concept or way of being instead of just talking about it—will lead to a new kind of expression, which I call postsymbolic communication.

This may sound wildly speculative, but yes, I really was serious. In fact, I believe we are seeing early signs of the cephalopodization of our species right now. One arena in which the transformation is beginning is in massive online virtual worlds. Second Life is probably the best example. I serve as a technical advisor to Linden Lab, the company that administers Second Life, but really, most of what I have done is watch in delight and amazement as thousands of creative individuals have signed up, logged in, and built an entire virtual planet. ...

"Response to my critics," by Meera Nanda

Ron — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 22:11:00 -0800
"Prophets Facing Backward," my book under discussion here, claims that the cluster of social constructivist, feminist and postcolonial theories that deny any cognitive distinctions between warranted knowledge and collectively accepted beliefs ... have provided philosophical justifications for [a] kind of populist interpretive flexibility ...

Set against the backdrop of the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, the book argues that the relentless debunking the very idea of universally valid, bias-free facts has received in the hands of its many academic critics, has added to a culture of doublethink where truth has becomes infinitely malleable, open to all kinds of nativist, pseudo-scientific and faith-based interpretations.

Intellectuals, whose job it is to challenge such mystifications, I argue, have betrayed their calling by condemning the very possibility of impartial and universally valid truth that can cut through cultural and national boundaries. This betrayal has made it easier for the religious right to present itself as the defender of the tradition, dressed up as “alternative science”, which it claims has been unfairly rejected and willfully suppressed by the secular elite. The logic of deconstruction of modern science simultaneously provides the logic for the construction of “sacred sciences” by the resurgent religious-political movements that have sprung up among the Hindus, Christian and Muslims alike.

It is indeed high time for science studies to get engaged in the thorny issues raised by the attempt of religious extremists to take on the prestige of science for their objectively false and outdated cosmologies. It is gratifying to note that the debate I began in the "Prophets" has now been joined. My colleagues from science studies and postcolonial studies have done me the honor of critically engaging with the concerns I have raised regarding the political dangers of epistemic multiculturalism in this age of religious fundamentalisms. In this essay, I will respond at length to the issues my critics have raised in their readings of the "Prophets." ...

"Prophets Facing Backward," by Meera Nanda

Ron — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 21:26:00 -0800
The leading voices in science studies have argued that modern science reflects dominant social interests of Western society. Following this logic, postmodern scholars have urged postcolonial societies to develop their own "alternative sciences" as a step towards "mental decolonization". These ideas have found a warm welcome among Hindu nationalists who came to power in India in the early 1990s. In this passionate and highly original study, Indian-born author Meera Nanda reveals how these well-meaning but ultimately misguided ideas are enabling Hindu ideologues to propagate religious myths in the guise of science and secularism.

At the heart of Hindu supremacist ideology, Nanda argues, lies a postmodernist assumption: that each society has its own norms of reasonableness, logic, rules of evidence, and conception of truth, and that there is no non-arbitrary, culture-independent way to choose among these alternatives. What is being celebrated as "difference" by postmodernists, however, has more often than not been the source of mental bondage and authoritarianism in non-Western cultures. The "Vedic sciences" currently endorsed in Indian schools, colleges, and the mass media promotes the same elements of orthodox Hinduism that have for centuries deprived the vast majority of Indian people of their full humanity.

By denouncing science and secularization, the left was unwittingly contributing to what Nanda calls "reactionary modernism." ...

The Omega Point and the Final Fate of Life

Ron — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:08:00 -0800
How long can life survive in the universe? Can it evolve forever, or will the third law of Thermodynamics lead to universal heat death? Apparently there might be some ways around this fate, if intelligent life is sufficiently clever and tenacious.

Essentially life has to adapt as the universe grows older, changing itself to be able to survive when the stars grow cold. If the universe is open, there will be plenty of time to work in, but energy will become very scarce. Dyson has shown that a finite amount of energy is enough to guarantee infinite survival if it is spent sufficiently slowly (this is called the Dyson scenario).

On the other hand, if the universe is closed, it will recollapse into a Big Crunch after a finite time, becoming hotter and hotter. Life has to adapt and restructure itself to these conditions, and if intelligent beings accelerate the speed of their mental processes accordingly they can even experience a subjective infinite time during the last stages of the collapse (this is called the Tipler scenario).

A third possibility is that the universe may be open or closed, but new baby universes branch off due to natural or artificial causes, and intelligent life can survive indefinitely by migrating into new domains as the old become uninhabitable. This is commonly called the Linde scenario. ...

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) to deliver first 5 million units this year

Ron — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:19:00 -0800
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Initiative unveiled its final industrial prototype of the XO - a laptop computer with a toylike look. But to say it's a toy is misleading. The device is intended to bring the most isolated tribal village into the Information Age, with the ultimate goal of offering one to every child on the planet. [Except for India, whose education bureaucracy vetoed OLPC participation last year.]

By keeping the price low, the OLPC initiative hopes that governments in the developing world will be able to afford them. Already, Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand, Uruguay, and, most recently, Rwanda have committed to participate in the program. Rwanda hopes to have laptops for all of its schoolchildren within five years. ...

Prof. Suarez-Villa’s website on the rise of technocapitalism

Ron — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:06:00 -0800
Thanks to RY Deshpande for the reference to Prof. Suarez-Villa’s website on the rise of technocapitalism:

Technocapitalism is a new form of market capitalism that is rooted in technological invention and innovation. It can be considered an emerging era, now in its early stage, that is supported by such intangibles as creativity and knowledge.

Intangibles are at the core of technocapitalism. Creativity and knowledge are to technocapitalism what tangible raw materials, factory labor and capital were to industrial capitalism. During industrial capitalism, tangible resources acquired the greatest value, as factory production, repetitive labor and massive output ruled the day. In the emerging technocapitalist era, however, those material resources are becoming secondary in importance.

Intangibles are therefore vital for technocapitalism. Creativity and knowledge are the most valuable resources of this emerging new era. They, for example, already account for as much as three-quarters of the value of most products and services in existence, and that proportion is bound to increase over time. In contrast, the material resources that were most valuable for industrial capitalism are losing value relative to those intangibles in most every product or service.

New economic activities are emerging that are representative of technocapitalism. Biotechnology, nanotechnology, bioinformatics, software design, genomics, molecular computing and biorobotics, for example, are likely to be hallmarks of the twenty-first century, as electronics and aerospace were in the twentieth. This new ecology of activities and sectors is more reliant on creativity and knowledge than any of the old industries of industrial capitalism. ...

Auroville entrepreneurs: Use Segway Personal Transporters for AV tours?

Ron — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 12:54:00 -0800
Here's an interesting article on how "Segway in Paradise," a company in Pittsburgh, PA [USA], is very successfully using Segway PTs (Personal Transporters) for tours around town. Perhaps these could be used for tours around Auroville? Are any AV entrepreneurs listening? ...

The Challenge of Our Moment: A Roundtable Discussion with Don Beck, Brian Swimme, Peter Senge, & Andrew Cohen (WIE)

Ron — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 06:12:00 -0800
This seemed like an appropriate article to post in honor of Christmas Day. ~ ron

...if you've been following the evolutionary trajectory of What Is Enlightenment? over the past couple of years, you may have noticed that a new kind of thinking has indeed been finding its way onto more and more of our pages. Call it integral, second tier, holistic, or systemic, this new thinking is the hallmark of a growing wave of visionaries with the eyes to look beyond the surface turbulence and grapple with the multilayered complexities undergirding our global dilemmas. Challenging us to face the elaborate interwoven forces that are shaping our destiny for better or worse, these evangelists of higher-order thinking offer what many feel may be the best chance we have at meeting the demands of the years ahead.

So, in attempting to come to terms with our uncertain future, and particularly with the role that religion will play in it, for this issue we decided not just to speak with a number of these leading-edge thinkers but to bring them together and have them speak with each other. As firm believers in Plato's assertion that the highest form of knowledge is that which emerges in dialogue, we couldn't imagine what could give us a better chance of seeing the biggest possible picture than a roundtable discussion between some of today's brightest integral minds, who are each attempting, in their own way, to forge a more evolved course through our present and future world. ...

More evidence that the basic "laws of physics" favor evolution of life?

Ron — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 15:41:00 -0800
More evidence that the basic "laws of physics" favor evolution of life? (ron)

Nanoscale ice formations resembling the double helices of DNA will form when water molecules are frozen inside carbon nanotubes, detailed computer simulations suggest.
Researchers at the University of Nebraska, US, used a supercomputer to run detailed mathematical models of the behaviour of water molecules. In their simulations, they inserted the molecules into carbon nanotubes under high pressure, before cooling them to -23°C.
The scientists were surprised to see the molecules organise themselves into "spiral staircase" arrangements similar to those of a DNA helix. "It was very unexpected," Xiao Cheng Zeng, the computational nanotechnology expert who led the research told New Scientist. ...

The MIT Media Lab's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project: a New Prototype for Philanthropy?

Ron — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:28:00 -0800
...The concept behind the project, which Negroponte unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, less than two years ago, is as simple as its name: give all children in the developing world laptop computers of their own. If we achieved that, he believes, we could bridge what's usually termed the "digital divide." The laptops would offer children everywhere the opportunity to benefit from the Internet and would enable them to work with and learn from each other in new ways. OLPC, the nonprofit organization that Negroponte set up to manage the project, has taken responsibility for designing the computer and engaging an outside manufacturer to produce it. But the nonprofit is not going to buy the computers. That, at least for now, is the responsibility of governments, ...

BioPower Systems, Ltd. - Biologically Inspired Ocean Power Systems

Ron — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 13:28:00 -0800
BioPower Systems Pty. Ltd. is commercialising award-winning biomimetic ocean energy conversion technologies. We have adopted nature’s mechanisms for survival and energy conversion in the marine environment and have applied these in the development of our proprietary wave and tidal energy systems. -- Our technologies inherit benefits developed during 3.8 Billion years of evolutionary optimization in nature’s ocean laboratory.The resulting systems move and sway in tune with the forces of the ocean, and naturally streamline when extreme conditions prevail. This leads to low design thresholds and associated low costs. ...

Inc. Magazine introduces "The Green 50 - Do Good, Get Rich: The Eco-Advantage"

Ron — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:45:00 -0800
Introducing the Green 50, a collection of entrepreneurial companies that are showing what it means to run good businesses, attack the most pressing problems of our time--and make serious cash along the way. ...

"Happy Birthday iPod: A revolution in your pocket; Welcome to the era of the shuffle"

Ron — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:19:00 -0800
...the odds are good that even as you observe this, your own ears are exploding in sound -- maybe the just-downloaded croonings of Bob Dylan's latest offering, a classic Philadelphia Orchestra symphony or an amateur "podcast" featuring a barroom-style discussion of last week's NFL games. Or perhaps your device is displaying a scene from last week's episode of "The Office." -- If so, you are tethered to one of the 60 million -- and counting fast -- iPod music players sold by Apple Computer in the last five years. And though it may seem you are doing it simply because you like the music and are pleased by the award-winning industrial design, you can congratulate yourself for participating in something a lot bigger than the tiny iPod: a revolution that has helped topple the idea that record labels, studios and broadcasters should set the terms for how and when you entertain yourself. Instead, Apple's ubiquuitous gadget has ushered in the era of shuffle. ...

"Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century" ('Business Week' review)

Ron — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 16:48:00 -0700
Ok, this review convinced me. I'm going to order my own copy of this new book, created by Alex Steffen, the executive editor of the amazingly informative website "Worldchanging.com," which Rich alerted us to in a recent post to SCIY. ~ ron

...Part encyclopedia of socially conscious companies and movements, part picture-book (it includes gorgeous color photographs by leading photographers such as Edward Burtynsky), and part how-to instructions on becoming a greener consumer or business, the nearly 600-page volume is an invaluable resource you can use without booting up your computer... And to justify the dead trees required to produce the tome—and set a compelling example for readers—publisher Harry N. Abrams printed each copy on 100% recycled, chlorine-free paper. Abrams also purchased wind credits (from www.renewablechoice.com) equal to the amount of electricity needed to manufacture the book.

Libya signs up for "One Laptop per Child." Will provide 1.2 million laptops for its students

Ron — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:44:00 -0700
The fifth developing country has signed up for MIT's "One Laptop per Child" program. This is the open-source project that India recently opted out of, reportedly because of fears of losing control of the education of their children.

The government of Libya is reported to have agreed to provide its 1.2m school children with a cheap durable laptop computer by June 2008. -- The laptops offer internet access and are powered by a wind-up crank. They cost $100 and manufacturing begins next year, says [the non-profit organization located at MIT's Media Lab] One Laptop per Child. -- The non-profit association's chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, said the deal was reached on Tuesday in Libya.

The Long Now Foundation: Fostering Long-term Responsibility

Ron — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:52:00 -0700
Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. The trend might be coming from the acceleration of technology, the short-horizon perspective of market-driven economics, the next-election perspective of democracies, or the distractions of personal multi-tasking. All are on the increase. Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed -- some mechanism or myth which encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where 'long-term' is measured at least in centuries. Long Now proposes both a mechanism and a myth. ... - Stewart Brand

Magenn Power Inc. - Innovative lighter-than-air wind turbines

Ron — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 11:17:00 -0700
I wonder if this new floating-in-air wind turbine would work as renewable electricity for Auroville and India?

The Magenn Power Air Rotor System (MARS) is an innovative lighter-than-air tethered device that rotates about a horizontal axis in response to wind, efficiently generating clean renewable electrical energy at a lower cost than all competing systems. ...

The Smith College Museum of Ancient Inventions

Ron — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 14:46:00 -0700
This is a fascinating site. E.g., check out the Bhagdad Battery item:

"The Baghdad Battery is believed to be about 2000 years old (from the Parthian period, roughly 250 BCE to CE 250). The jar was found in Khujut Rabu just outside Baghdad and is composed of a clay jar with a stopper made of asphalt. Sticking through the asphalt is an iron rod surrounded by a copper cylinder. When filled with vinegar - or any other electrolytic solution - the jar produces about 1.1 volts. ..."

Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV)

Ron — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:46:00 -0700
There is a growing consensus that distributed photovoltaic systems that provide electricity at the point of use will be the first to reach widespread commercialization. Chief among these distributed applications are PV power systems for individual buildings. -- Interest in the building integration of photovoltaics, where the PV elements actually become an integral part of the building, often serving as the exterior weather skin, is growing worldwide. PV specialists and innovative designers in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. are now exploring creative ways of incorporating solar electricity into their work. A whole new vernacular of Solar Electric Architecture is beginning to emerge. ...

A Crunchy-Granola Path From Macramé and LSD to Wikipedia and Google

Ron — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:17:00 -0700
...as Fred Turner points out in his revealing new book, “From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism” (University of Chicago Press), there is no way to separate cyberculture from counterculture; indeed, cyberculture grew from its predecessor’s compost. Mr. Turner suggests that Stewart Brand, who created the “Whole Earth Catalog,” was the major node in a network of countercultural speculators, promoters, inventors and entrepreneurs who helped change the world in ways quite different from those they originally envisioned. -- Mr. Turner, who teaches in the communication department at Stanford University, is rigorous in his argument... and impressive in his range. The basic premise, though, is not unfamiliar. A decade ago the cultural critic Mark Dery suggested in his book “Escape Velocity” that the PC revolution could well be called “Counterculture 2.0.” Other writers have also pointed out uncanny overlaps. ...

Sustainability Institute

Ron — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:23:00 -0700
We focus on understanding the root causes of unsustainable behavior in complex systems to help restructure systems and shift mindsets that will help move human society toward sustainability. Our staff includes biologists, writers, social scientists, system dynamics modelers, and facilitators bringing a wide variety of experiences and skills to our work. ...

Microsoft files lawsuit over DRM crack

Ron — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:16:00 -0700
Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against anonymous "John Does 1-10" whom they allege have broken Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM [Digital Rights Management] with stolen source code. The only currently-known "John Doe" in the case is a hacker who goes by the handle "Viodentia" and is the author of FairUse4WM. The software strips songs purchased from Microsoft partners, such as Yahoo! Music and Napster, of their Windows Media DRM, allowing users to continue listening to songs after canceling their subscriptions to said services and to use the songs on other platforms—things that would not normally be allowed with the DRM in place. ...