It’s okay to send a teenager against his will to be cured of his homosexuality. It’s okay to process animals through “rendering plants” if they are “unfit for human consumption.” It’s okay to seize someone’s home against their will if it’s in the public good.
Yes, I use to wish that my homosexuality could be cured, sometimes I eat meat without thinking about how animals are processed, and I have stolen in the past.
And none of it is okay.
A little over a year ago after a few rough months I decided to start doing what I wanted to do, rather than helping other people with their own goals and dreams. I guess I just didn’t have the confidence before to strike out on my own. An acceptance letter from the University of Arizona (I had applied but didn’t expect to be accepted) provided the opportunity I needed to leave the old baggage behind and start a new life. At 31 I swallowed my fears (Am I too old? Is it too late? Can I do this on my own? Where am I going to get the money?) and moved to Tucson, Arizona.
My “freshman” year is now over. It was rough - I should have done a lot better - but taking control of my life and pursuing my own dreams has turned out to be the very best decision I have ever made. You see, I have always wanted to be a planetary scientist. Well, I am now a member of the operations team for the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), set to launch this August. HiRISE is a technological marvel which will allow resolution of objects on the surface of Mars as small as a meter across.
I did not expect to have a job like this until many years in the future, after I got through school. This new opportunity is a dream come true. There is no way I can put into words just how I excited I am. Everything that has happened in the past year is a direct result of my decision to pursue my own passions and maintain my own independence.
The HiRISE camera is certainly cutting edge, but new technology will make it obsolete very soon. Over on Marshal Brain’s “Robotic Nation Evidence” blog, he provides a link to information about a new robotic binocular vision technology from a company called Focus Robotics. This remarkable technology allows two robotic “eyes” to scan their environment at “[u]p to 60 frames per second of 752×480 depth information” (Focus Robotics, Processor Overview). This compares to current hazard avoidance technology used by the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity that can only scan at a few frames per second at much smaller resolutions.
This technology could enable rovers and orbiters that truly see their environment and respond to it in real time without waiting for instructions from human operators on the Earth. In fact, hazard avoidance is not the only skill this technology enables. Future probes will eventually take over all targeting tasks, currently hardcoded by programmers here on the Earth and uploaded to the probe as a set of rigid instructions through the Deep Space Network. When probes take on these targeting tasks, much of the operations work done here on the Earth will be eliminated.
Of course, such technology will eventually threaten my job, but I have never been one to pass up automation just to feel needed. There are many other ways I can participate in a planetary science mission. If automation means more rapid and comprehensive scientific results, and less repetitious and laborous work for me, then all the better. Instead of distant tools, future probes will become valuable members of science team in enviable frontline positions, returning breathtaking images of alien vistas throughout our solar system and beyond.
I am glad to finally be in a position to not only watch this incredible future unfold but actively participate in it. I challenge everyone to reconsider your current routine and take a chance on your own passions. You cannot do it without hard work and perhaps some luck, but the rewards are even better than you can imagine.
There are a great many video weblogs and Internet television series available now that are interesting and better than most of the crap on over-the-air, cable, and satellite television. Unfortunately, you have to download episodes of each show manually (a few weblogs can be automatically downloaded through videocasting which is similar to podcasting), find them in their individual folders, watch, and then click too damn much when one ends and you are ready to watch another.
What I want is an Automated Internet TV platform that automatically downloads and stores episodes of my favorite series and creates a channel that randomizes the shows while keeping the episodes in order. For example, I want a channel with “Star Trek: Hidden Frontiers”, “Rocketboom”, “The Scene”, and independent films, but set on shuffle, with episodes of each show coming in the right order.
There IS Winamp Internet TV, which you can surf through like regular television channels, but the content is generally poor and you cannot mix up shows by individual episodes from different channels into your own playlist. A couple of organizations, Brightcove and Participatory Culture Foundation, are working on improved Internet TV platforms but little is known about their user interfaces and features.
Once this dream platform is created then I want it to become so incredibly popular that television series created for the networks and cable jump ship and become available over the Internet. I’ll even pay a fee. How about US$1.99 for each new episode, US$0.50 for older episodes, or a $19.99 yearly subscription with unlimited reruns of all episodes prior to the latest?
Of course, once that becomes incredibly popular, then prices will start falling and packages of several different shows will become available for less than $19.99 a year. By then, there will be many more shows available than now, a level playing field for independent, public, and corporate-funded programming, and little need for the middlemen networks and cable companies. While we’re at it, throw in the entire movie, television, video, and DVD library since each were invented and make the Internet the ultimate video storage and jukebox.
Oh, believe you me, an exhaustive Automated Internet TV platform IS coming, no matter how hard the middlemen try to fight it. Unfortunately, I wanted it now. Now I have to wait, and that makes me a little angry. Time to watch more “Rocketboom” and decide whether or not I have a crush on host Amanda Congdon.
It is interesting that a review of VoIP services by Associated Press writers does not include any mention of Skype. The writers claim that their phone costs have been cut in half by moving to VoIP services such as Vonage, but somehow their excitement rings hollow when Skype is free. $19.95 for unlimited calls anywhere in the United States and Canada versus free unlimited calls to the world? One-time fees to add additional services versus no such fees? 4 cents a minute for long distance calls within the United States versus 2 cents a minute to many countries around the world and only for calls from Skype to their phone (it is always free Skype to Skype)? Perhaps the writers feel their readers are only ready to make the leap from their local telephone lines to VoIP services that emulate traditional telecommunication business models. Maybe they believe Skype is too technical for their readers.
Maybe they just do not take Skype seriously, like the customer service representative I talked to earlier this week when I called to cancel my cell phone service. She kept warning me to “read the fine print!” Something just didn’t sound right to her, despite the fact that I have been closely following the progress of Skype for awhile now and am now saving nearly $50.00 a month.
Skype does not currently offer emergency 911 service, but this and other limitations will quickly vanish as the software becomes more sophisticated, arrangements are made, and third parties jump into the fray. Vonage’s recent talks with Qwest to use their 911 infrastructure promise a day when this service is integrated with VoIP. Soon videoconferencing, 411, social networking, education, radio and video broadcasting, and much more will become available for Skype, taking the service far beyond the limitations of traditional land-based telephone line and other VoIP services.
For now, if I have an emergency, I can call family or friends via Skype, knock on my neighbors’ door, use a calling card at a payphone, or, if I become worried enough, buy one of those disposable cell phones. Oh, but wait. I don’t have to rely on any of those options. Cell phones can reach 911 even when you don’t subscribe to a service package. Good thing I didn’t throw it away like I intended.
Who are you that you can tell me what to do? Who are you to tell me that I cannot pirate my digital content, take drugs, have sex with whomever I choose, dress how I want, color my hair how I want? Who are you to tell me that I cannot experiment with myself?
Who the hell are you?
I know who you are. You are the person that thinks my freedoms will give you more freedom than you want to handle. You are the person who thinks that careful regulation of every aspect of a person’s life will somehow protect you. You are self conscious. You think I am looking at you. You are that person who wants to hold on to their own power at the expense of others. You fear change. You are nosy. You have to be involved in other people’s lives. You cannot live on your own. You cannot imagine more. You fear yourself.
Who the hell are you to think you have any power over me? Why do you think I grant you any say over my life? I could care less about you and I care more for you than you will ever know. It is humanity that I love, and not you, and who do you think you are to expect my respect, my love?
I do not answer to you and I do not acknowledge your right to regulate my life. Take your laws of fear and stuff them. LEAVE ME ALONE!
In a little over a year Skype has gone from hype to 29 million registered users. SkypeIn (where people can call your computer using their regular phone) has 1 million paying users. It is no wonder that traditional telecommunications companies who recently dismissed Skype have become silent on the subject. Skype is heading to cell phones, which are now just hand-held computers as powerful as laptop computers were in the year 2000, allowing calls to take place over Wi-Fi connections to the Internet rather than via cellular networks. Companies are increasingly turning to VoIP (and Skype) for their internal telephone needs.
Beyond the technological advances are new social phenomena emerging as Skype grows in popularity. People are contacting strangers using Skype to ask for help in practicing their foreign language skills. New dating and networking services are making use of the Skype backbone.
All of this is an example of convergence (various hardware, software, and service platforms merging) but if that were the only process at work, then Skype would be nothing more than “Telephone Version 2.0.” It is the unexpected application of new technology that says more about rapid progress and change in our time than expected uses.
Because the software is free, Skype is fast becoming an API that can be used by other software. Think of it this way: the graphical user interface (GUI) was an important advance in software during the 1980s, but now we take it for granted as more advanced GUI are standard in most modern operating systems. Right now Skype is one of the hot new products making the news, but eventually VoIP technology will be just one component in much more advanced products and services.
Technical wizards are leading the way. A new service call “Skypecasting” is merging Skype with the power of podcasts via recording software to redefine radio. This, of course, creates another problem for traditional music companies (as it will for the movie industry since Skype or a similar program will eventually allow video conferencing as well). This new use for Skype is further proof that technology is rapidly outpacing our ability to deal with it. Just when the Supreme Court is hearing a case that some believe will determine the future of peer-to-peer networking technology, along comes a new technology that will only exacerbate the issue, and perhaps put it beyond the reach of the Court’s eventual ruling.
Trying to keep up with these rapid technological and social changes is a lost cause, but perhaps describing some of the emergent patterns can be beneficial. It may also be useful to adopt a new mind set based on an understanding of these patterns. Most people do not really pay attention to such things, and they adjust when necessary, but can we continue to be reactive? “Skype is only software” some might argue, but this is an arguement they will not be able to make for long. Much more profound changes are on the horizon, changes that will soon result in paradigm shifts that no one can deny, on time scales measured in weeks and days or less.
How are you dealing with all these changes?
This is an incredible story. What is even more incredible is the reaction to the story (see the comments, including a “fake” comment by someone pretending to be the student and another one that may or may not be from “her” lawyer.) Then, after you read about all that, click on “Main” at the top of the page to see more current updates to what happened. Apparently it has been resolved and the blogger is going to post a wrap up sometime soon.
The power of blogs. What a crazy world we live in! With the Internet comes more opportunities for that “15 minutes of fame” but that fame is double-edged.
What do you think? Do you think the blogger was right in his actions? Did he go too far?
So, what do you do when you have tons of homework and a test in the morning? Study? No way…you watch karaoke!
Winamp 5.0 is a surprise, with support for streaming Internet radio and television. But this isn’t your parents’ radio and television. This is content created by amateurs and independents, finding their outlet in cyberspace.
The karaoke is streaming video from bars like the “7 Bamboo Karaoke Lounge” in San Jose, California, USA. The quality is surprisingly good, with the feed coming in at 720 by 480 pixels and 15 frames per second. I’m pretty sure the feed is not live because of the careful editing between tunes, but it may be live at other times.
This underground revolution is taking me away from mainstream entertainment (besides my homework). I’ll have more to say about this later, but my assignment to you is to start thinking about what this revolution might mean. Where is it heading? I’ve got a few ideas…but now it is time for karaoke. I mean my homework.
Crazy talk!
California Assembly Member Lloyd Levine is calling for a ban on pet cloning. Why?
My response to Mr. Levine:
This fear of new technology is going too far. What’s next? Banning Apple’s iPod as a weapon of mass destruction?
There are many debates these days about the ethics of human enhancement through technology. Should we draw a line between medical treatment and human enhancement? For bioethicists calling for the outright bans on some research, the potential benefits for treatments and cures of common medical conditions are outweighed by negative consequences. Others argue that it is okay for people to be cured but not okay for people to become superhuman.
The hosts of the “Ethically Speaking” radio show recently discussed transhumanism. They feel there are “yuck” and “affordability” factors to emerging technologies but neither are good arguments against transhumanism. They end the segment with the following scenario:
“Let’s say that you go to the eye doctor. Instead of 20/20 vision, the doctor offers you glasses that make your eyes 20/10—much better than normal. Would you say, “Don’t enhance my vision please. I want no better than normal vision?”
The most common arguments against transhumanism might as well be from the school yard:
Many transhumanists are as passionate about making advanced technologies available to all humans regardless of cost as they are for using that technology to enhance themselves. Every new technology that changed our way of life has had its critics, including the first airplanes. Critics argued that man was not meant to fly and would be punished for his impudence. Humans have not and will not be punished. Instead, humans will deal with the consequences, both good and bad, of all of our inventions, including those that begin to redefine what it means to be human.
Thank you, doctor. I choose the glasses that will give me 20/10 vision.