Life as an Artificial Lifeform

As I will be in the beautiful Devon/England for the next three weeks I won´t be able to blog for the lack of any internet connection near me. So I wish everyone a good start into the New Year and wonderful Hollidays. Everyone who does not know what to do between Christmas and New Years Eve should check out the Chaos Communication Congress with tons of intelligent brainfood and VJ Showcases at night from the Visual Berlin e.V. I will not attend this year for a little communication pause until next years Chaos Camp. Everyone here thank you for reading and for the real world reading this blog - sorry if I didn´t make sense all the time. Life is the hardest and we all have to learn, evolve and respect our feelings. Sorry for being to vocal and to harsh at times. I sincerely hope that 2006 will be as special as everyone wishes.

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On a side note:
2005 is the year when BlueGene/L performed more then double as many calculations per seconds then a human brain.

Posted by fALk at 0:09 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I would like to write more but don´t have the time. There are a couple of "future of TV" articles out in the blogs todays that seem to look at short term and long term problems TV and its slow underlying apperatus faces. The most interesting is from the Bubble Generation blog and has an indepth analysis of what is going wrong in TV where TV is headed (new delivery methods) but where it should be headed if it wants survival (unbundling argument again a little deeper explained)

It's not that execs will be disintermediated; it's that newer, radically more efficient mechanisms for aggregating information about consumer preferences and expectations - and then using that info to make production in turn, hyperefficient; to produce and deliver content in ways that maximize utility - are slowly taking their place, making them irrelevant. The value at the core - execs, stars, marketing, meetings, and memos - is being replaced by decentralized communities and markets, where connected consumers self-organize around the media they love.

And there is more on the Particletree.

Posted by fALk at 11:58 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

or how to spam all bluetooth devices around you at once - that is Consola a new open source application that uses Bluetooth object push to give guerrilla advertisers a better tool for bluetooth abuse. Mac OSX Tiger only.


Consola is a 'Bluetooth Proximity Media Server' application for Mac OS X 'Tiger'.

You can administer the content you send, and avoid spamming users with repetitive media, and may also schedule and automate the entire process.

PS: As one of the developers of Consola contacted me (look at the comment below) I want to make sure there is not that bad aftertaste on this article: I do think the program is great - yes it has potential for "misuse" but also has promising feature that I did not comment on when I was writing this rushed out article. The tool can be used in museums and interactive installations and city information system etc. as well as in guerrilla spamming. I do not think that any tool is bad just because you can use it for something not so desirable - you can use a brick to kill someone but that doesn´t mean that we should outlaw or blackmail the use of bricks in general. The programmers obviously did a fine job with the program - its stable robust and clean and the idea is entering new grounds - I just played the devils advocate a little too much and apologize for that. I sincerely hope that Consola is continuing on the idea and tell me how their blacklist works on my phone so I can lock out notorious bluetooth spammer (not that I have encountered any but you never know)

Posted by fALk at 11:35 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In what seems like not awakening from a bad dream our new Interior Minister Mr. Schäuble (CDU) is openly telling the german public thats he fully supports german courts using information obtained under torture. He also thinks its fully ok if some people rod in Guantanamo and other torture prisons without trial or hope because

"A couple month in prison have moved some to talk before....."

"Ein paar Monate Haft haben schon manchen bewegt auszupacken...."

Then he states that some german interrogators have been visiting two germans in torture prisons in Syria and Guantanamo/USA and because there is nothing written down in the papers about torture torture didn´t happen.
All bigger german newspaper report about it - positively or "neutrally". Looks like our new government is closer to the US path then most think. I would say indict Mr. Schäuble for conspiracy in a terror plot - fly him to Egypt or Syria or Afghanistan and have some of the fine treatments done to him and then use the evidence from that to lock him up until the end of time - and I am sure he will talk - he probably will even admit he is Osama with a long enough interrogation.
Its not acceptable I am not part of this shit. Everyone asked how it came to WWII and how Hitler had so much support - when I see what is happening right now its not far fetched to see it go further - and yes I openly support the view that a lot of the actions in our government closely resemble what had been happening in East-Germany (interrogation under torture, full surveillance of the population, travel restrictions (oh these will come for sure - just wait for the next airplanes being blown up)) and Nazi - Germany (torture prisons, people being deported for their race, the whole nation sitting at home listening to radio (now watching tv) and doing exactly nothing - a lot even supporting it. Its frightening especially since there is no real alternative out there.

Posted by fALk at 11:00 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are lots of people who unquestionably believe what mainstream news media says. Most read one or two newspapers and watch one or two newsshows on TV. When confronting them problems in news coverage they tell you you are a conspiracy theorist and that the news outlets have a lot of credentials that can´t be dismissed. If you can´t confront these people with hard evidence - best would be first hand experience - they do not stop believing in the massmedias message. Now a very hard evidence not to believe anything that comes from massmedia (and maybe even from certain blogs)regarding the US is the report by the USA Today that talks about a $300 million Pentagon budget for pro US propaganda around the world. The report cites that the money will be spend to stealthy plant messages that are not traceable to the US government inside Allied and Islamic countries to polish up the bad image of the US. In other terms the US is using the guerrilla PR tactics to get a better world wide image on the effective. Now what that means is: Question every news regarding the US or an US endeavor (Iraq, Iran, NorthKorea, Israel, Pakistan, China). Try to find different accounts of a certain news that is of interest. Let logic do its part to decipher a news. Tell friends that news in the media can not be easily trusted. I know this all sounds obvious to most people reading blogs but its something that in the real world people seem not to get a grip of yet.

Posted by fALk at 12:29 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After seeing the robot videos on TokyoDV yesterday I was quite impressed on how far robotics have come. Yet today Honda - the maker of the most human like robots - the Asimo series - are introducing version 2.0 of their already outstanding robots. Besides from just walking and shaking hands of presidents they now run in circles, push trolleys and go with you on a walk. Still only very rude in self-judgment Honda seems to have pinned down the mechanical side. They are already working on version 3.0 which will have more emphasis on Artificial Intelligence and self made decisions. Now I still do not understand why no-one is discussing publicly about the impact an even half intelligent robot has on todays culture - just taking low wage jobs for any example - I guess about three quarters could be overtaken by a simple AI inside a robot that must not be much more agile then the current Asimo.
The honda site has lots of videos of the new Asimo 2.0. You couldn´t render them any better at home I guess.

Posted by fALk at 14:36 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

that puts the world into a virtual slave mode. An article over at the information clearinghouse is talking about TV and the problems it causes in society. It sums up very strongly how I feel about TV - why my home is TV free and I put everyone to hell who wants to introduce TV in here. Interestingly enough they also cite games in the article to make none-thinking, "living in a virtual world" couch potatoes out of yourself. This part I partially agree. As TV games can be as addictive and virtual as TV. Games in the contrary give interaction and most games played addictivly today are online games that force you to interact with other humans - yes still in a virtual world but still somehow humans. So reading Joi Itos comment recently about how he "lost the fun wrting on his blog - maybe because he is playing too much World of Warcraft" it might even lend credibility to the fact that games do posses the same mind dumbing druggy power - even on highly intelligent people (who might even not admitting how much it affect them - talking about me personally here as well - I just tossed away that Warcraft III game because I could see a similar effect on me).
Games or not the much bigger problem at the moment is TV. Ralph Nader is quoted in the article to have said that "90% of television is commercial". That makes 90% of television purely entertainment without anything gained for personal experience or education. Given that a normal western person watches about 2-4 hours a day thats a huge amount of time lost to virtual banalities in his/her life. Ones television was pipped as a tool for education and I still think that it would be a great tool for education if it would be used as such.

Those who are seduced and mesmerized by television are not likely to make trouble. They are not going to question corporate America’s version of reality and make waves for the status quo. Television is junk food for the mind that leads to morbid mental obesity. The result is impaired mental function. It stifles free thought and inhibits human potential. Nothing in the history of civilization has been more responsible for dumbing down the American public than commercial television. Television numbs the mind and impoverishes the spirit. It is an essential tool of the corporations that have hijacked the American government and led to the commodification of everything from forests to human labor. Without the commanding and highly addictive drug of television, America’s powerful military industrial complex, with its ambitions for world domination, would be rendered moot.

Posted by fALk at 13:19 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The UK Times (that big news outlet thingy) is reporting that apparently Arial Sharon - current Prime Minister of Israel - is preparing the Israeli Army for a surgical strike against all of Irans secret and public nuclear development sites. They cite the successful strike against Iraqs first nuclear powerplant "Osirak" in 1981 and how that prevented Iraq getting nuclear weapons.
Now there are some problems with that easy thinking. First of all Iraq had one single site of nuclear development - Iran is said to have over one hundred. Iraqs site was somewhere in the desert - Irans sites are deeply underground - mostly in highly populated areas. Iraq had only old defensive system - Iran is recieving modern airdefense equipment from russia probably before the "surgical" strike from Israel would happen.
Needless to say that any action from Israel that is not the "100% successful" the article claims it will be will inflame the whole middle east and will turn any arab personality into an enemy of the west - The Palestinensian - who arguably get financial and military aid from Iran would intensify their fighting. I can not imagine Syria standing still and along the way turning Lebanon into the warzone that it was in the past (and this part seems to have already started if you look at the news). Iraqis Shiites will likely support Iran in some way or another and might even unite Sunnis and Shiites again against a common enemy - and if you look at how vast Iran is with its mountain ranges and huge land mass - it seems impossible to get a grip on it militarily and will probably amplify the insurgent struggle of the region and might export that struggle to other parts of the world. I do not think its a smart idea and seeing the Iranien president given absolute shit about the world opinion he seems to think along the same lines. And yes I do agree partially with him - germany seemed to have killed millions of jews and they are having a big responsibility to resolve the issue without blind guilty support for Israel - they should rather try to hinder any regime regardless of nationality, belief or politic direction of killing or torturing or humiliating a single person - Israel, Iran, America, Syria, China.

Posted by fALk at 13:05 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From one of the coolest vlogs on the block comes this wonderful video of a Sony Robot performing what looks like Tai-Chi. There are other dancing playing fighting real life robots on the stunning TokyoDV Videoblog - mostly shoot at the Robodex earlier this year. I knew that we have advanced quite far in robotics but looking at those creatures wave, walk backwards, nod their heads have small little gestures (totally unnecessary for movement or survival) throw balls hop around and all this perfectly smooth (no robomotion) its starting to get a little strange and fearsome. Its makes it not a single bit better that they are designed to look friendly. Look at your soon to be workforce replacement by clicking on the above link.

Posted by fALk at 16:56 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In a report about a recent study (oh yes studies that support ones own theories are always welcome for the little bit of propagandistic spin) by the economy magazin "Capital" the german Netzeitung states that the internet is playing a more and more dominant role in opinion making especially in the male 14-39 years demography. TV is more and more seen as a "side" medium - running along when the main attention is on the PC - a position that up until now was the market for radio. According to the report the obvious trend has not spurred a new thinking with the TV administration folks who still dismiss it as "to small percentage to worry". The study points out that especially in the younger generation the media usage pattern is burned in and will shape the future - it will accelerate fast and furiously until TV has become a niche medium. Already in the above described demographic 55% - more then half of the asked people turn to the internet to make an opinion compared to 39% that get their brainwash from TV. What seems like a big slap in the face of the new economists of the last 6 years who always said that TV will be predominant in the years to come and that the internet might be integrated into TV - and a lot of failed TVwithInternetAppliances later - 59% of the young male demographic would like to see TV integrated into the internet - the older population is more conservative with only 39% of the 30-39 year old wanting to put tv on the net.
The study sees the young male demographic as the leading force for future technologic development and says the trend is already irreversible and will accelerate. Welcome to the free speech everything seems possible without tabu zone our massmedia overlords - now its our battleground you are entering - may no force be with you to take over the citizen media of the new intelligent information age.

Posted by fALk at 16:08 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Complaining without propositions for the better are very common these days and I plead guilty to that charge. So the more I feel better to discover strategies, concepts and ideas that show a way to the future - especially if it seems the concept are very founded and researched and the path they show is with a positive spin. Natural Capitalism might be one of such approaches. Neither is it groundbreaking new nor very radical what is presented in this half online readable half pdf downloadable and fully buyable book. Its rather a collection of current political and society observations and trying to fuse them together to a better whole then its ill contempt parts which seem to infuse us now. The fusion of the idea of the free market to sustain a certain live style with socialism ideas of society living together peacefully and the green ideas of a sustainable living are a good hint of what might be coming ones the world has woken up from the current industrial century nightmare of overproduction, destruction of the worlds nature and social splitting based on wealth. Its one of those theories where it could all lead to - if you take the human species out of the equation with its powergrabbing destructive nature.
A good read on a rainy winterafternoon.

Away from the shrill divisiveness of media and politics, people are
remarkably consistent in what kind of future they envision for their
children and grandchildren.The potential outcome ofnatural capital-
ism and sustainability also aligns almost perfectly with what American
voters are saying:They want better schools,a better environment,safer
communities, family-wage jobs, more economic security, stronger
family support, lower taxes, more effective governments, and more
local control.In this,we are like all people and they are like us.

Posted by fALk at 15:24 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Things are getting worse every day. A little bit of this thing formerly called freedom is going down the drain. Terrorism laws here, DRM there patents somewhere else put in a little war and you have the recipe of a world that reminds anyone coming from the former east-bloc or from the nazi-regime or some other totalitarian regime in general on there past - just on steroids.
The question of a popular overturn of todays power elite (massmedia, politicians, mega corporations) seems not to be a matter of "if" anymore - more a matter of "when". How long are we going to watch this before taken action? What can be done against it? Is there a new concept for living n this planet in a peaceful free way for our individual society where everyone has a different thought on how things should go? How bad are things supposed to go until the masses are going on the street? Will the masses even go on the street or just try to sit it out in front of a TV watching football? Will there be politicians respecting the will of the people more then the will of the money and power? How many more antiterror, drm patent policeenforcement, military "peace keeping" laws are we going to get before the rest of the population wakes up to what is looking more and more like a bad hollywood movie with bad actors that everyone is watching but noone understands. I guess as long as everyone can buy their 99 Euro Diamond ring for christmas or that lucid 40" Flatscreen TV, or that gold embraced cellphone nothing will happen as this seems to keep people happy. Those that think probably need to think twice about speaking out too loud in the near future (if history serves as an example) or they could find themselves in Guantanamo imprisonment for vocally supporting terrorism hunted down with there cellphone information anywhere in the world and made commitments through waterboarding. Ah great times ahead .......

Posted by fALk at 20:46 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Stumbling over a very disturbing collection of photos that show the cruelty of war on all sides. Children with turn of heads, families of once laughing soldiers crying, a president in his big black limousine, a vice president still smiling, crying mans over killed relatives more once smiling soldiers. The american public is financing this stragedy with more 200 billion US$ this year and about 300 billion next year.

Posted by fALk at 14:04 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just over a week ago the massmedia of the world was abuzz with headlines on how the US had used white phospherous to burn out Falluja and its residences. The hype lasted exactly two days and then other news completly overtook the subject. As it stands right now NOTHING has been done. I mean its not like we are talking about some stock market numbers that change every day or about some music star crashing his car while drunk - we are talking about the self named "police of the world" killing thousands of inhabitants of a city with chemical weapon. Its absolutely shocking how the world completely forgets about those things twice and how the american government can get away with such a crime without any questioning - meanwhile the puppet government in Iraq is putting Saddam on trial for exactly the same things (read Bagdhad burning for more insight on what I mean). Instead the world wide media is concentrating on other serious crimes of the day - which will be forgotten in a week - like the abduction and torture of a complete innocent german civilian in Serbia. All the US has to do is say "oh it wasn´t so bad" (not even denying it - just saying it is all not as bad as the world makes it out) and everyone forgets in about a week. HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?
Not only have I lost complete absolute trust in every western government around the world - I do also blame the media to play the dirty political game for self enrichment and power grabbing. It can not be that all checks and balances have gone overboard in the course of less then five years. As much as I do not like absolutistic regimes with their own problems - I do think some of the other world powers (China, Iran, Venezuela etc) that be should band together just to counter the ruling unchecked power block of the westernized world with a huge media push of their own.

Posted by fALk at 13:28 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An art group from Switzerland(?) is doing a very "fun" things to demonstrate problems in the online space vs. capitalism. The concept is to automatically buy google shares whenever someone clicks on a google ad on one of their hidden pages throughout the net. With that they think they can own whole of google sometimes in the future and distribute the online data giant with its market value that is higher then all of Switzerlands banks together back to the users (Google to the People Public Company Ltd.). If successful it would deconstruct the global online marketing mechanism and the system of capitalism at a whole. I wish them lots of click - google back to the base.

Google will eat itself.

Posted by fALk at 16:52 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Terry Heaton writes about the future of TV and the apparent challenges it faces and the opportunities for the medium. With some official looking graphics he goes into what he says would be the unbundling of traditional TV. Making the content selectable taking apart for example a TV News Show into Sports, Weather, International New, Local News and posting each one to the web and by generating a income with some advanced programming that goes into a specific topic (like a transmission of a whole sports game in full length or an indepth documentary). I would like to challenge his view - or add to it - by saying why do we need huge mega media corporations to do this? Isn´t a fan of a specific sports event more capable to deliver the news on his video blog? Or an independent journalist more respectable researching a specific topic for a documentary. Wouldn´t a giant news database that would collect news semi automatically (ala google news) from local sources be a better more accurate more balanced Reuters? I just can´t give up hope that the future of any information lies in the hands of smaller operating units rather then multimega corporations as it would deliver a more close to life accounts of the world around us. The ongoing dialog that everyone is talking about would deepen and therefore things would get multiple perspectives. Also it would be harder for politicians to control or manipulate media as its been done so regularly. So in the end its not only the unbundling of specific broadcast - that might be a short term measure for the massmedia to stay alive a little while longer - its about an total splinter of communication and information down to each and every individual (with web access). The very absolutely best example that is already happening now is the Bagdhad Burning Blog by Riverbend - a Iraqi girl blogging from inside Bagdhad for as long as the war is going on and giving a very accurate account of the feelings and happenings from a very individual perspective that rivals every news about Iraq at the moment. Reading her entries gives you much more insights into the every day problems piling up in Bagdhad and the nonesense some of the massmedia is telling the educated western world. Now not with video yet - as video blogs are still harder to make - but I guess the theory is that all todays massmedia will be "hard hit" with personal perspectives of individual reporters - TV, Text or Radio.

Posted by fALk at 15:09 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ah it feels good to let the future know you existed. FutureMe.org is offering a service where you can write someone (yourself or anyone else) an email that is then send at specific date that you can specify - up to 20 years into the future. You can make your email public for someone else to muse about your writing or make it completely anonymous. I just did today - and its private sorry.... :)

Posted by fALk at 18:15 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You have seen me here reporting about death of the TV a lot - a topic which I follow closely as it affects me personally and would be of such benefit to human society - but putting personal feelings aside - TV seems not the only one last century medium that slowly dies - at stake seem to be ALL of them. Cinema, Radio, TV, Newspapers - all in the process of loosing their market power and being replaced by some or other web enabled variant. First of all comes an article from roblimo from slashdot trying to shed light on what are newspapers doing wrong with some handy number of how bad the newspaper market really looks. The San Francisco Chronicle has lost 16.4% of its dead tree readership in the last year alone! The example that he is picking to show the world what newspapers are doing wrong - the very local Bradenton Herald - lost 3.5% in the same last year. He tells them - get to the web and get the webcontent more up to date - print a collection of all webarticles at one a clock and send them off to the few who still prefer dead trees in their houses. Also engage your readers in open communication - take advise from them and let them correct what needs to be corrected as in slashdots own service.
This was yesterday.
Today I stumble across two other articles. First one via delicios future tag that tells us how bad german cinemas did this year - a steady decline since four years now by the way - with last years beeing better because of some very good films but over the last four years a steady decline. So year over year they lost 20,2% of their visitors. The Tagesschau blames it not only on bad movies (so I do blame it a lot on those) but also on file sharing and home theaters. Someone disputed my claim that cinemas are dying on VJCentral I couldn´t dig up the proof back then - well here it is - it can´t get more apparent. Even the very bad for cinemas year 2003 was much better then this one.
So whats left? Radio. Well podcasts, downloadable music in unseen quantities, sharing swapping downloading creative commons, community radios, internet streams compared to a constant bombardment of chart music mixed with commercials straight from the crypt - I never thought how much this could impact radio - myself an avid radio listener. Apparently it seems hard to really measure the actual radio listeners (compared to the quotas) but at a recent Reuters Media and Advertising Summit advertising executives are talking about radio as if it was already dead. A mixture of new technology and bad bad programming (and I guess its even more true in the states) is leading to the black box six feet under for radio stations at an immense rate.
What gives? Its not only the net that prompts those developments for the old last century media - its also bad programming and bad planning - the net speeds up the process by giving an alternative - interestingly enough the net also has the power to overthrow the media conglomerates at the same time by giving everyone a voice, a canvas, a antenna and a roll of film. Artists, writers actors, moderators, creative people rejoice - its time to start reshaping the media. Diversity and almost unlimited amounts of views and content will bring us closer together and let us advance and develop a greater understanding for each other - religion, politics, believes, technology - the bidirectional communication approach of the net enables us for the first time since smoke signs and drum chains to unfiltered uncontrolled global thought exchange.
If it wouldn´t be for the powers that be that would like to stop this from happening and there I need to throw some more salt into the sweet soup. A lawsuit in germany against the heise Verlag states that they are responsible for everything written in the comment section on their online publications - means they need to censor their own readers if there is any questionable content - and you thought we live in a free speech world... The other one is as serious. Someone in the open online encyclopedia Wikipedia was altering an article on John Seigenthaler that accused him of having his part on the assassination of the Kennedy brothers John F. and Bob. Even so in America a lawsuit against the parent company seems not to happen the wikipedia administration has closed the ability to create new articles or alter older ones for everyone not registered - a real setback for the wiki revolution and the bidirectional web.
The struggle for both sides will continue - the free open side and the old "we don´t want to move into a new information society were everything can be said always". The powers that are will challenge the powers that be as it always happened and I suggest that we might even see dead people over this sooner or later - the capital just doesn´t want to loose control of their slaves.

Posted by fALk at 17:36 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The day when everything changes seems to come closer and closer if you want to believe one of the "world as we know it" ending scenarios. and there are quite a lot of them out there next to Nostradamus and Marsians taking over the two most prominent and believable? Peak Oil and Singularity and in between them selfdestruction.
Peak Oil is gaining momentum in a plethora of on and offline communities - its the scenario that is based on the fact that in a couple of years (people estimate at most 15) the world is running out of oil and therefore its base for prosperous survival and capitalistic growth. A scenario were mankind would suffer the consequences of the overuse of one of the most valuable assets of todays earth by burning it just to move around. No more plastic no more cars no more transportation. The scenario is one that will gradually lead to a new society that either adapts in time on a grand scale and therefore has little impact at all or will disrupt western lifestyle totally and lead us back to a more earth bound life without lots of technological advancements with some superrich people maybe hanging in there extremely long and grabbing the world power.
The other interesting option is Singularity - the event when one or more or all technological researches produce something artificial or biological or subatomic or ? that is better then the brain of todays humans. There are some rivalries if it might be the nanotechnology, the advancing field of nanobiotechnology or artificial intelligence on normal silicon based computers. So an artificial intelligence or a highly upgraded human intelligence will spin the invention wheel faster and faster leading to better and better AI or upgrading or more and more nanocomputobots reinventing itself basically on an exponential curve hindered with only a lack imagination - maybe. This scenario would give us a world we can not comprehend right now with everything at stake - maybe even intergalactic space travel or the like. The timeframe for this interestingly enough was thought to come around 2035 (30 years) but has been gradually reduced in the last years due to the already happening speed up in technology and cross breeding technology to about 2015-2025 so again around 15 years from now - if you are being conservative (some people say this might happen before 2010 - I tend to ignore them).
Besides some institutes and communities rallying around those ideas it seems that the major powers of this world and the masses in general completely ignore those propositions of the future of mankind and take on the course we have been in since our existence - study, conquer, develop - yet all this poses so many philosophical questions that it might be time to think about these - if you believe any of it.
I myself have some doubt of both theories. With peak oil it seems that the first signs are indeed there and yes I imagine it might get a little bumpy but the society is already transitioning - even if very slowly - and migrating towards alternative energy sources and alternative productivity sources - away from oil. I guess there might be a transitional period where a little chaos could break out (maybe five years period) but in general it should be a position that stabilizes and seeing so many non-western culture countries still getting along just fine without the vast amounts of oil the west consumes I guess it might be for the benefit of the earth if that shake out affects the overconsuming overgrowing western world that has everything it desires.
As with Singularity - I just don´t know. As much as I like the theories behind it I also tend to look at history to see into the future for my amusement and I do see that in any period of intense growth people were overevaluating technologic accomplishments. Not only in war (romans vs. germans for example) but also in theory (flying saucers, robots and yes Artificial Intelligence itself when looked at from the standpoint of the 60s we should have computers talking to us intelligently for at least 20-25 years now). So yes computer power is growing and so we are advancing in nanotechnology, biology, quantum computing and all the other jazz out there - but are we really capable of developing something that will be more intelligent then ourselfs, better faster more precise without errors that still has the amount of conceptional and creative thinking that is so human and has lead us here in the first place? Will raw computing power and artificial neuronal networks really capture were we wanna go? I do see that we will have some great technological products in the future but I do have some serious doubts about singularity, brain upload/enhancements. I do see robots taking over most noncreative jobs and helping us out in everyday live. I see people living considerably longer then they are supposed to (maybe one day infinitely if they choose so), but I do not see a convergent point this all happens - and yes cellphone got much smaller as well as iPods, beamers have nanotechnology in them and and and - but if I look at my everyday computer life the intelligence inside the machine has not changed a single bit since I got my first one - they are just a little faster - sometimes I think the software I use is even dumber then when it was simple. My theory is that to make something that is better then we are - something that can replicate itself and think on some abstract levels beyond us it might be too complicated for the human brain - even in a collective whole - to generate in the first place - I of course liked to be proofed wrong. The idea of singularity to safe the world is stunningly beautiful - especially if it could lead to such vast technological advancements as space travel for everyone in my lifetime - I just have the gut feeling that we hit a roadblock somewhere -physical, mentally or theoretically. Out of all Singularity prospects I would go with the Artificial Intelligence Once if I could choose - as I do not trust Nanobots or strange biological updated humans - with plain good old hard/software combo and a lot of silicon you might have the option to change a routine after you started the process.
Of course there is also the possibility that we nuke ourself out of existence before anything happens.

Posted by fALk at 23:31 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have this catagory "Personal Spyware" and for a long time its been dormant as there wasn´t much news for the private hobby agents. Yet today I stumbled across the the first commercially available spyplane. Its not very expensive either with $150 you get the plane with a digital camera on board that can shoot up to 26 pictures and has a wingspan 140 cm and can fly as high as 300 meters. Impressive indeed.

Posted by fALk at 12:47 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

presents a Dutch documentary hosted on the Information clearing house. Michael Meacher Former UK Government Minister under Blair and Andreas von Bülow - Former German Secretary of Defense seriously doubt the official American version on why and how 9/11 happened. Michael Meacher tells us that "I don´t believe in conspiracy theories - conspiracies do sometimes occur if you look at history." The documentary pulls out all the well know contradictions from before at and after the event. It goes into the strategies of psychological warfare and accepting victims in their own rows to go to the final goal as outlined in the document "For A New American Century". The 9/11 was the catalytic event outlined in that document to rally behind their own nation to go into full warfare mode without much questioning. "Its the mother of all fog screens" to quote mister Galloway.

Posted by fALk at 12:20 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)