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Olemme tottuneet liian huonoon

Enhancing Humanity - Raymond Tallis
Anyone who considers the new technologies as inhuman, or as a threat to our humanity, should consider this. Better still, they should spend five uninterrupted minutes imagining the impact of a major stroke, of severe Parkinson’s disease, or Alzheimer’s disease on their ability to express their humanity. Those such as Fukuyama who dislike biotechnology do not seem to realise that the forms of ‘post-humanity’ served up by the natural processes going on in our bodies are a thousand times more radical, more terrifying, and more dehumanising than anything arising out of our attempts to enhance human beings and their lives.

Haukotus = aivojen tuuletin käynnistyy

We are meant to be here - Paul Daviesilta pari pätkää muistiin.

And the key point here is that the degree of error, which is inherent in the laws, depends on time. As the universe gets older, there are fewer errors because it's had longer to compute. If you go back to the first split second after the big bang, then the underlying errors in the laws of physics really would have been very large. So instead of thinking of the universe as beginning magically with a bang, and the laws of physics being imprinted magically on the universe with infinite precision right from the word go, we must instead think of the laws as being emergent with and inherent in the universe, starting out a little bit vague and fuzzy, and focusing down over time to the form that we see today.
--
If future scientists are human beings, they may be stuck with the same problems that we have. The way we think, the way we like to analyze problems, the categories that we define -- like cause and effect, space-time and matter, meaning and purpose -- are really human categories that cannot be separated from our evolutionary heritage. We have to face up to the fact that there may be fundamental limitations just from the way our brains have been put together.

Koti-ihmiset

Changing One Species To Another - J. Craig Venter
We now know we can create a synthetic organism. It's not a question of 'if', or 'how', but 'when', and in this regard, think weeks and months, not years.

Our Biotech Future - Freeman Dyson
We are moving rapidly into the post-Darwinian era, when species other than our own will no longer exist, and the rules of Open Source sharing will be extended from the exchange of software to the exchange of genes. Then the evolution of life will once again be communal, as it was in the good old days before separate species and intellectual property were invented.

Sharing is Caring - Katsotaan mainosta vaihteeksi sillä silmällä, että jaossa ovat biologiset ominaisuudet. Jos minulla on pitkäikäisyys ja regeneraatio, kopioin ne sinulle.

A History Of Violence - Steve Pinker
A third theory, championed by Robert Wright, invokes the logic of non-zero-sum games: scenarios in which two agents can each come out ahead if they cooperate, such as trading goods, dividing up labor, or sharing the peace dividend that comes from laying down their arms. As people acquire know-how that they can share cheaply with others and develop technologies that allow them to spread their goods and ideas over larger territories at lower cost, their incentive to cooperate steadily increases, because other people become more valuable alive than dead.

Piratismi edistää maailmanrauhaa. Kannattaa pitää naapurisopua yllä, koska naapurilla on mielenkiintoista kulttuuria (ja geenejä) jaossa ja varmuuskopiot oman talon kamoista (ja geeneistä). Olisi hölmöä hyökätä varmuuskopioidensa kimppuun.

"We think what happened is that cats sort of domesticated themselves."

Derren Brown: Messiah - Taikuri kiertää tekemässä ihmeitä uskovaisille. Primitiiviset ihmiset luulevat messiaaksi jokaista, joka tietää enemmän tekniikasta.

I challenge you to fill this box... with porn - Hauska mainostemppu rahan keräämiseksi Singularity Institutelle: lähetä vanhat DVD:t, pelit ja muut (aikuis)viihdetuotteet Floridaan, missä mies myy ne netissä ja lahjoittaa rahat SIAI:lle.

Näillä main on ehkä parempi myydä turhat tuotteensa itse ja lahjoittaa rahat suoraan ilman välikäsiä. TAI lahjoittaa heti ja myydä turhat rojunsa myöhemmin. Peter Thiel tuplaa lahjoituksesi vain ensi viikon perjantaihin asti, joten kannattaa kiirehtiä.

Hawk-10 - Mikroaaltouuni muuttaa muovin takaisin öljyksi. (Kiitos, Alari.)

Liam Hoekstra, the Mini Superman; Rare condition gives toddler super strength - Vielä ei ole sellaista pilleriä, jolla jokainen saisi myostatiininsa kontrolliin (vaikka huijarit jo kaupittelevatkin "myagraa" kehonrakentajille), mutta jonakin päivänä voimme kaikki saada sarjakuvamuskelit.

Simply put Liam is all muscle and very little body fat. He weighs a mere 22 pounds. Thankfully the condition doesn't affect the heart and has no known negative side effects. -- The hardest part of parenting their little muscle man is getting enough protein into him. Liam eats six full size meals a day and still struggles to gain weight.
--
The first human case was documented in 2000, in a German boy, but wasn't reported in medical literature until 2004. The condition is so rare in humans that scientists don't know how many people have it, said Dr. Kathryn R. Wagner, a genetics expert at Johns Hopkins.

Sumeat ongelmat

Laskuvarjohyppy avaruudesta - Orbital Outfitters kehittää sopivaa pukua.

An entrepreneur starts a biotech to save her daughter's life - Jutun aiheena Martine Rothblatt

LiftPort rebuttal to Slashdot discussion
There are many other problems, including regulations, social, political, military, religion, governmental, environmental, financing, management, accounting and many more. A common sound bite of Mr. Laine is, "Even if we had all the parts, all the widgets and gadgets, sitting somewhere in a werehouse, we STILL could not build it - the other, the "fuzzy" problems still exist." If you're truly interested, get involved. We are developing (a brand new effort) an "open source" philosophy around our elevator to space. We are putting together a wiki (much work is needed here) that will outline, and then be used to explore the various issues.

Canadian couples discover sex selection loophole - DNA Worldwide lähettää kotitestin, jolla voi määritellä tulevan lapsen sukupuolen.
Without a doubt, Canadian couples would use sex selection as a means to ensure family balancing—which in today’s two-kids-per-couple Canada translates to—*aghast*—an equal distribution of one girl and one boy.

The Vertical Farm Project - Kasvihuonekerrostalo. Samaan aikaan toisaalla: Paolo Solerin konsepti Solare, Lean Linear City, rivitalokaupunki.

Motivaatio normaali

Transhumanists Don’t Need Special Dispositions - Lisää peruskauraa. Transhumanisti ei tarvitse mitään "outoa halua" elää ikuisesti, koska ihan tavallinen halu elää riittää. Mitä yllättymisen arvoista siinä on, jos kaveri sanoo haluavansa elää? Enemmän pitäisi yllättyä siitä, jos kaveri haluaa kuolla. Ja mitä outoa on siinä, että haluaa käyttää elämänsä säilyttämiseen juuri teknologiaa? Ei tarvitse olla teknofiili tai palvoa liukuhihnarobotteja, jos haluaa korjata autonsa tavallisilla työkaluilla. Enemmän pitäisi yllättyä siitä, jos joku rukoilee ikivanha huoltokirja kädessään, että taivaallinen autokorjaamo hinaisi auton pois.

So the transhumanist says, “Let us use this technology to cure aging.” And the reporter thinks, How strange! He must have been born with an unusual technology-loving disposition. Or, How strange! He must have an unusual horror of aging! -- This is an unnecessarily burdensome explanation for why someone would advocate healing the sick by any means available, including advanced technology.

HRP-3 Promet Mk-II - Työläisrobotti, suunniteltu mechan näköiseksi.

Avatar Machine - Itsensä ohjaamista kolmannessa persoonassa. Ei tämä vielä selän takana vapaasti leijuva kamera ole, mutta jotain sentään.

Meet the first resident of Dubai's palm-shaped man-made island

Scientist Calls Mars a Terraforming Target for the 21st Century

Create a back-up copy of your immune system - Lifeforce Immune System Bank
The firm collects 480-millilitre samples of blood from healthy individuals, extracts the white blood cells and stores them as an insurance policy against future disease. The service comes at a price, though: around $800 for taking the initial sample then $25 per month for storing the cells at -196 °C. "That sample would have the complete repertoire of all your white blood cells," says Del DelaRonde, co-founder of Lifeforce in Newport, UK.

Tasot kohoavat vielä liian hitaasti

The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer
It may seem strange that a wage-working loot farmer would still care about the freedom to play. But it is not half as strange as the scene that unfolded one evening at 9 o’clock in the Internet cafe on the ground floor of the building where Donghua has its offices. Scattered around the stifling, dim wang ba, 10 power levelers just off the day shift were merrily gaming away. Not all of them were playing World of Warcraft. A big, silent lug named Mao sat mesmerized by a very pink-and-purple Japanese schoolgirls’ game, in which doe-eyed characters square off in dancing contests with other online players. But the rest had chosen, to a man, to log into their personal World of Warcraft accounts and spend these precious free hours right back where they had spent every other hour of the day: in Azeroth.

Ajattelen aina välillä näin metaforisesti, että olemme transhumanististen teknologioiden kanssa siinä pelivaiheessa, että päästäkseen seuraavalle tasolle täytyy keräillä pisteitä ja kultaa tappamalla samoja pikkumonstereita päivästä toiseen.

Who Loves Designer Vaginas?
What, furthermore, are you gonna do about human knowledge? About how science insists on marching hell-bent forward with such astonishing speed and with such incredible dexterity toward some glorious otherworldly nightmare dreamscape of anima manipulation, a land where we can effortlessly rescramble our genetic code and reconfigure this none-too-solid flesh as we "play God" in so many bewildering ways the Christian right can't even figure out where to aim its hollow, horrified indignation?

ViewPoint - Taustapeili silmälaseihin.

Brain Activity Controls Toy Train

Tunne näkemäsi

Peilikosketussynesteetikot tuntevat näkemänsä kosketukset - Tästä selitystä sille miksi toiset eläytyvät kuulemaansa musiikkiin tai näkemäänsä elokuvaan voimakkaammin kuin toiset. Ja kuinkahan tämän voisi käynnistää keinotekoisesti ja tehostaa sitä? Sopiva annos peilikosketussynestesiaa aiheuttavaa kaasua teatteriin ja elokuvan sänkykohtaukset alkavat tuntua omalla iholla.

It's hard for others to imagine what it must be like to feel every touch seen — in the subway, in a horror film, at a dance. It's equally baffling for the synaesthetes to imagine not feeling it. "I've never been able to understand how people can enjoy looking at bloodthirsty films, or laugh at the painful misfortunes of others," said one of Ward's subjects.

Puiden korkeuden säätöä geenimuuntelulla
Other than reduced size, there appeared to be striking variation in foliage color and leaf shape, some of which might have significant ornamental value. Root development also appeared to be very strong, which might provide increased stress tolerance and have value where extensive root development is needed, such as in bioremediation of polluted soils or in very windy, limited soil moisture situations.

Polynap MP3 Soundtrack - Jos joku haluaa edelleen kokeilla.

Photosynth & Seadragon - ZUI-video.

Second Earth
The worlds of the Metaverse will be much more diverse but still bridgeable, Rolston predicts. "Portions of this 3-D Internet will be anchored to the real planet and will involve real-world activities, and others will not be," he says. "People will move freely between representations of the real world and representations of synthetic fantasy worlds, and feel equally comfortable in both."

The CarveWright Woodworking System - Puunkaiverrusprintteri.

Humans Will Justify Almost Anything
What if you make a choice that is really bad and you can't hide from it? What is the mind's strategy for dealing with a colossal mistake? Well, as Tavris and Aronson note, public figures from Henry Kissinger to Ronald Reagan to Scooter Libby and Alberto Gonzales have opted for a simple phrase that deflects all responsibility: mistakes were made. But just as commonly, people who don't want to own up to a mistake become even more entrenched in their belief once it is proven wrong. They throw good money after bad in the market, grab for straws in a dying relationship or send yet more troops to fight a misbegotten war.

Bones could allow data swaps via handshake
The researchers suggest applications such as a vibrator in a wrist receiver/transmitter that could tell an implant placed near a bone to release a drug dose, with the implant then sending back data from its sensors. Similarly, tooth clacks or finger clicks could be interpreted by a receiver to activate, say, functions in a phone.

Yksinkertaisempaa

Transhumanism as Simplified Humanism
Transhumanism is simpler - requires fewer bits to specify - because it has no special cases. If you believe professional bioethicists (people who get paid to explain ethical judgments) then the rule “Life is good, death is bad; health is good, sickness is bad” holds only until some critical age, and then flips polarity. Why should it flip? Why not just keep on with life-is-good? It would seem that it is good to save a six-year-old girl, but bad to extend the life and health of a 150-year-old. Then at what exact age does the term in the utility function go from positive to negative? Why? As far as a transhumanist is concerned, if you see someone in danger of dying, you should save them; if you can improve someone’s health, you should. There, you’re done. No special cases. You don’t have to ask anyone’s age.

Prometeus - Prosumer-video.

Robot to act as MC at SKorean wedding - Robotit vievät papeilta työt.

Power Pedal - Robottijalat $167,000

Olen kiinnostuneempi yläpään kasvattamisesta

Kodak saattaa tehdä salamavaloista historiaa ja saksalaiset saattavat tehdä miniprojektorien tärinästä historiaa. Salamavalon ja tärähdyksen pilaamista kuvista on tultava loppu. Kyllä kameran pitäisi jo oppia itse ottamaan kunnon kuvia.

Hello, from the car in front - P2P-autoilua. Näen jo mielessäni jäätelöautoja muistuttavia piraattipakettiautoja, jotka kiertelevät kesäfestareilla jakaen ilmaiseksi musiikkia ja muuta kulttuuria telttaväelle. Siinä olisi hyvä kesätyö.

"In some applications a car just needs internet content, say a local map or picture. Then, the car can get the data secondhand from another car that was earlier connected to the internet and happened to have downloaded that map or picture," says Professor Mario Gerla, who heads the UCLA Network Research Lab.

Suomalaiset saavat eniten maksettuja lomapäiviä.

Spartan DX Personal DNA Analyzer - Hinta $14,995