States of conciousness, states of evolution.

Posted on July 2, 2008
Filed Under Rise of the machines, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I came across this article in scientific american about how people conceptualize different types of beings - with respect to how much consciousness / human qualities they can ascribe to each one. The subjects in question were robots, corporations and gods. The test groups were generally willing to ascribe some anthropic qualities to these different types of beings - except feelings. People seem to feel that what really sets us apart from other entities is our awareness/sense of self, and our ability to have feelings like joy or sadness.

This cognitive intuition (about how aware we think other entities are) tends to make us want to get on a pedestal and preen. Oh look! We have feelings. We can express ourselves. But what if our collective cognitive intuitions are the wrong way round? Maybe consciousness is not some higher state to be achieved… maybe it’s the bottom rung of the ladder… Read more

Gates Bids farewell

Posted on June 27, 2008
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I am really quite sad about this. Sad as in ‘end-of-an-era’ sad.

See: this reuters article…

I was just reading the other day about the new advertising/rebranding campaign that microsoft was going to enter into, in an effort to give Apple a good thrashing in return to what it’s been able to do to microsoft’s image.  And I was thinking, this’ll be kind of interesting to see if the sleeping giant (microsoft) has finally had enough of its ‘uncool’ image… maybe it’ll be a big comeback.  Reading that Gates won’t be at the helm when (and if) a comeback actually happens has me all teary-eyed.

While it’s been flawed, Windows has always been a handy multi-purpose environment… let’s hope they get their act together…

Savannah thinking vs post-scarcity thinking

Posted on June 3, 2008
Filed Under Society and culture | Leave a Comment

I have a silly pet name for that part of our survival instinct that has been annealed through eons of ‘belong-or-perish’ regimes. I call it ‘Savannah Thinking’.

Figuring out what the group consensus is, and and then acting accordingly has worked since we, as is now generally accepted, got down from the trees and struck out onto the plains. Being ostracized by the group probably greatly reduced one’s chances of survival, and nobody wanted to be the chimp on the bottom rung of the social ladder (punching bag with no grooming or mating rights? no thanks!). Read more

more genomics…

Posted on May 22, 2008
Filed Under earth systems and biosystems | Leave a Comment

Check out this post about the future of biology at broad perspectives (formerly futurememes) on more interesting developments in the world of genomics. To quote briefly from the post,

“The two biggest current revolutions are in personalized genomics and synthetic biology”…

Yep. That’s as expected. And that’s why we need more open-ness.

And also more education. I wonder if the curriculum for biology is being expanded to include the dazzling array of technologies and attendant moral and legal issues. If in a few generations’ time people are going to have to be able to make informed choices about what to do with bits of their own DNA, their own personal biology, I hope they’ll know enough to make the right decision.

Original design, anyone?

Posted on May 19, 2008
Filed Under Society and culture, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I have recently discovered something about interior design: there are 3 options when decorating: 1) buy an interior designer’s time, and then buy what they tell you to buy, or 2) buy items that have been pre-designed to fit into a common-denominator design scheme, or 3) get out your toolbox / sewing machine and make something yourself.

Option #1 costs a bucket load of money, and quite frankly I wouldn’t have anything to rant about if it was a serious option, so let’s move on… Read more

I’ll be back! (moving)…

Posted on April 30, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Well, finding a place and getting it and packing and moving stuff in an out of boxes reaches a frenzied peak tomorrow when the movers come. They will probably be unimpressed with how much we’ve still left them to do. Sigh… will be back soon once we get ‘wired’ again on the other side!

Ant, Flex, Eclipse.

Posted on April 14, 2008
Filed Under Software Systems, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

I can’t imagine why anyone would ask *me* how to get Ant to work with the flex 3 sdk and Eclipse. Alas, someone has (don’t they know better?!) :)

So anyhow this is how I got it to work. It is not great. You have been warned. Also it assumes you’re mildly familiar with ant… Read more

Open Genomics

Posted on April 12, 2008
Filed Under Software Systems, earth systems and biosystems, science | 1 Comment

Interesting little site, this: http://www.sgc.utoronto.ca/.

It reminded me of Andrew Hessel’s talk at SciBarCamp about how scientists are now able to create their own biological entities from scratch, by writing software. Yep - writing genetic code; creating your own baby bacterium that has never existed anywhere on earth before. This isn’t a process that uses vectoring either; the sneaking of foreign genetic material into a host organism seems quaint and old-school in comparison to the new synthetic biology that’s available now. Read more

Aural agents, synaesthesia and dead stories.

Posted on April 2, 2008
Filed Under Media, Society and culture, Software Systems | 1 Comment

This post really should have been titled ‘The Treble and the Treble Clef’. It’ll all make sense later (or maybe not). Anyhoo. After my somewhat irregular hiatus from blogging, I thought I would re-enter into the habit of online spouting with a weird-ish topic. So if you’ve nothing better to do, then why don’t I tell you a bit about an idea that’s been bouncing about in my head for a while… Read more

Troubled sciences, evolutionary physics…

Posted on March 25, 2008
Filed Under science | 2 Comments

When I heard Lee Smolin talking at SciBarCamp something struck me: this gentleman from the “hard sciences” distanced himself from all the pop science theorizing that made physics and maths popular in the late 90s: He wasn’t extolling the virtues of one Grand Unified Theory over another, nor was he gushing about the strange and magical mathematical tools we’ve developed of late to solve some (sometimes inconsequential) problems. He was excruciatingly humble about his own obvious prowess, and kept claiming that he was ‘befuddled’ (this being, I concluded, his favorite word). Read more

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