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Banking Alternatives
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1694
I've posted before on the evils of the banking system. But it's an easy thing to criticize something without putting forward a solution. And it's a useless thing, criticism - valid, useful criticism - should always offer scope for improvement and accessable alternatives. Here's one writer's alternative.
Plastic Skull; $100
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2417
While shopping for the Boy for Christmas I came across something I wanted to buy him very badly. It was a plastic model of a human skull. With removable rubber brain.
"An Excellent Thing" I thought to myself "For him to study...Invaluable preparation for his career as a brain surgeon....".
Now the boy has never expressed any such interest, but I liked it and so was attempting to persuade myself that he would as well.
$100.00 is a lot to pay for a lump of plastic, no matter what it's shape.
"What attracts me to it?", I wondered as I handled the package. It was in a small independantly owned hobby store in the neighborhood. Is it an echo of my own bereft childhood, growing up without a plastic skull of my own to hold onto and cradle? Or is it the fact that it comes in a plain, square box, without illustration, exactly as one would imagine it should come from an anatomical supply house? It is, after all, the perfect "Memento Mori", and when he wasn't playing with it we could keep it on my desk....
I consult with his mother, ever tactful she advises me that his tastes are somewhat less eccentric than my own, perhaps ....
And she lists a pile of things that she's certain he would like, more practical and useful things....
On the one hand I'm somewhat relieved.
$100.00 is a lot of money for a plastic skull.
But I'm saddened as well, by the fact that it won't be able to rest upon my desk. The perfect gift.
I reassure myself that a real one would be better, and I'm right, plastic is a poor substitute for bone. And real ones are everywhere, the trick is to find one, ethically sourced, not from a chinese medical supply house, but preferably ploughed up in a farmers field, although this then raises a whole new set of ethical questions about native rights and burials...
I Love Alaska
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1566
An excellent documentary serialized on minimovies.org, "I Love Alaska" reveals one persons story through search terms entered into AOL.
Excellent conception, narration & realization.
The Singularity
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Technology
- Hits: 1912
Currently I'm reading "Science on the Edge" - a book that describes itself as "...a collection of conversations with leading scientists..".
And I've noticed that a recurrent theme is that of "The Singularity". Now "The Singularity" is a term borrowed from physics, meaning (to quote the Wiki) "a place where quantities which are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite.". But the singularity they are referring to is different, it refers to something known as a "Technological Singularity". This is the point, depending on your source, wherein Computers become "Intelligent" and can program and design themselves. Wherein human intelligence is appended to a machine, wherin human evolution joins up with computer evolution.
Almost all of the scientists in the book agree that "The Singularity" is coming, where they disagree is as to when (estimates range from 2020 to 2050), and they disagree as well as to the possible results or outcome. Generally the view is rosy.
At this point we'll be able to download our entire lives into a computer - a sort of "Virtual Immortality". And this is only the beginning.
Now here I become a little skeptical. Great advances are being made, undoubtedly, the technology we can buy generally lags several generations behind what is actually being manufactured. This is inevitable, we wouldn't want anyone to jump right into the ipod terabyte without having first purchased the 512 MB, the 1GB, the 4GB, the 8GB, ad infinitum. The release of technology is staggered so as to keep funds coming in. But I recall as well reading a readers digest book as a child - "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts", part of which dedicated itself to having "Respected Authorities" predict the future, the year 2000, if I recall correctly, and the predictions were - well, suffice it to say we live in a very different future. By now we were to be on Mars, robot slaves would do our work for us, and so on.
This future did not work out as planned.
Nonetheless this new future is interesting. And it has possibilities. It's being introduced to us through the arts and literature - think of films such as "The Matrix", "AI", there are more. And the future is always inevitable, regardless of how it comes about.
It's an interesting idea.
For Mark Pesce's take on the future evolution of technology, view his video "Becoming Transhuman".
Or Ray Kurzweil at the TED talks.
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