After some initial calculations, Baba figures that in just a few more levels he should be with a comfortable froob striking distance of some QL 200 implants. This is based on only the most basic health buffs easily available to froobs, the surgery clinic for 100, a Doctors buff 80, his ring of presence 1, a med suit for 86. With one round of laddering treatment implants, at his current level would allow him to equip ql 194 implants, so once Baba adds 6 more points to his treatment skills it will be time start working on the upgrade.

On the armor side, Baba is still getting value out of a full set of QL111 carbonum. Surprisingly, even though he has found lots of Miy’s in the 110 to 200 range, there is very little that he can equip that would present an improvement over his 111 carb. He did switch to a ql130 Miy's Melee helmet, some ql 127 Rhinoman gloves, and a Miy's ql 145 ranged breastplate recently. He really doesn’t need the 2HandEdged boost any longer from the Rhinomen gloves, so he will definitely looking for another full set. At this moment he could easily equip some QL 140 carb with not extra buffs. With buffs he could equip up to around 160 and not be over equipped. He is going to wait until after he gets his next set of implants thought as they should up some of the needed skills enough to make a few levels higher difference in the carb.

Baba is pretty confident in contemplating pulling together the materials for the carb and thinks he knows what to expect in trying to find a tradeskiller to put it together. The implants are another story. He is saving all implants he finds over 129 and has a good cache of 150 to 200 ql pieces. He needs to review the information out there regarding stripping implants and bumping up their quality levels. From his initial review of what he has in stock, it may be a long time before he finds all the pieces he needs for a full set.

Tuesday evening, Baba made a Borg hunting expedition again to the dunes in northeast Perpetual Wastelands. The luck of the loot drop tables tonight seemed at first to be against him, as he was getting quite a few Borgs with no loot, or only filled with low quality shop food, and only one or two pieces of Miy's armor. He did come across two Cyborg waist implants, one of which is very noteworthy as it gives 232 Heath! It is Atrox only, but conflicts with the need to get 2hedged skills from that slot. It could be something to keep in mind for after when IP gets capped, and he could spare the slot.

He had the dunes to himself, and had filled his experience bar to about 50% when he mis-judged a pull and could not fight his way out of 3 tough Borgs. When he returned after reclaim, he patiently worked his way accross the biggest dune a the far northwest corner, eventually clearing it completely of Borg and again filling his experience bar to 50%. After losing that much previously that evening, he decided to return to Newland City and hit the insurance terminal.

Jag delar Alexander Funckes bedömning att Internationella Olympiska Kommittén inte kommer att ändra sig så snabbt. Är det en fortsatt dopingjakt som väntar? Svaret finns dels i Erik Starcks fråga om kroppsförbättring och Funckes viktiga diskussion om alternativa scener för idrotten.

En ledtråd finns kanske i en debattartikel i Aftonbladet från Jan Söderström. Hans artikel argumenterar för mer satsningar på veteranidrott, vilket är ett bra steg för många att hålla sig i form. Han pekar också på isoleringen för elitdrotten från det övriga samhället. Det jag tog fasta på är just hur veteranidrotten nog får ännu mer gråa zoner, där gränserna för medicin och prestationsförbättring blir vagare. Vi kommer att behöva fler av förbättrande mediciner när vi blir äldre, oavsett om vi är friska, så även äldre idrottare. Kanske är det ur just veteranernas krav på mycket god vigör vid hög ålder, både mer seriösa idrottare och amatörer som öppnar upp för kroppsförbättring?

Vägen från veteranidrotten till en spridd kroppförbättring är inte rak. Samma reaktion som mot förbättrade elitidrottare kan komma in här. Jag tror inte att jag slår en 71-årig Carl-Erik Särndal i höjdhopp, det bäddar för samma irritation av att de som redan är fysiska praktexemplar blir ännu bättre.

En annan anledning till dopingmotståndet är rädslan för att den öppnar vägen för en skräddarsydd medicin, och de enorma kostnader den skulle kunna orsaka för sjukvårdssystemen.

Frågan om kroppsförbättring via läkemedel har sin egen belastning, då läkemedel är ett känsligt och område, där vad som godkänns som medicin eller inte är minerad. Vi skall inte tala om gendoping, där rädslan för gentekniken också sätter in.

Så det kanske är ur Erik Starcks tanke om cyborgatleten (vad är en cyborg, se filmklipp) som tar öppnar upp för kroppsförbättring.

Fotamputerade Oscar Pistorius, som fått klartecken att tävla mot "friska" idrottsmän, ses inte som en fuskare utan snarast som en hjälte.

Mycket av acceptansen bygger på att vi är toleranta mot funktionshindrade, men är samtidigt är vi mer öppna för att funktionshindrade (om de vill) skall få förbättra sina nuvarande kroppar. Mekaniska proteser verkar också mer acceptabla.

Så kanske blir det idrottsrörelsens två avläggare, veteranidrotten och handikappsidrotten, som öppnar för kroppsförbättringen genom att bli de specialklasser som Alexander Fucke diskuterade och att därifrån tanken om förbättrande medicin kommer in i samhället.

Det är en svår fråga, en av 2000-talets riktiga stora skiften, som ännu inte politiserats.

Pingat på Intressant

Ytterbium Electronic Lifeform Limited to Assassination

Hahahah, perfect!

The first is, admittedly, a bit unfair, because it would have required her to correctly predict the future. Hayles, writing about the concepts of information and embodiment, relies a bit too heavily on the predominant and utopian ideas of the time – the late 1990s, when the Internet's bubble was still growing. While she correctly believes how in an information-rich age, the “scarce commodity” becomes human attention, the fix, so to speak, is a proliferation of “intelligent machines” that she sees working like neural nets to “sort email, discarding unwatned messages and prioritizing the rest” by learning our email-reading behavior (pg. 287). Today, the closest we have to that is the spam filter, which work to an extent, but inevitably always sends to junk the one really important email you've been waiting for...

Another example of the kind of utopian, tech-driven bubble-makers at the time is something I've written about before: Wildfire. This telephony-based virtual assistant remembered your schedule, and could forward calls to the appropriate place (work, mobile) based on things like time of day, or screen your calls, and send certain people to voicemail, while putting others directly through. Today, Wildfire doesn't exist (although the demo phone number still does!)

Why haven't these technologies ever to come to fruition?

The most obvious answer is the Internet boom went bust. As Trebor Sholtz writes in his “History of the Social Web”:

All of this happened against the backdrop of a starting backlash of technology stocks in the financial markets, which indicated what later became known as the Dotcom Crash. The flashy WebbyAwards exemplify the “dotcom bubble”. Since 1995, it brought together thousands of people in costumes, with hired faux-paparazzi to make people feel important. The Internet was predicted to be the quick replacement of the post office, the fast way to cash in on markets all over the world. The perceptions of the evolution of markets on the Web were exaggerated. Venture capitalists (VC) poured millions into companies that had given up traditional business models, which led to some spectacular failures.

The tech industry went back to basics, and gave up on many of the utopian dreams of the time. Hayles, of course, can't be blamed for not thinking this would all come to an end.

The second, and more important, critique I think can be made is that, through her reliance on science fiction as something of a metaphor for real-life, she makes the cyborg seem a bit too fantastic. While there is merit in this approach – she clearly draws connections between the cultural production that creates fiction and the kind that creates science, arguing much of the why and how around the concept of “information technology” exists (was determined...) because of the people who studied information technology. Bits and bytes are a construct that have as much to do with culture and social factors as they do about silicon chips.

That said, using Philip K. Dick and Bernard Wolfe's “Limbo” to get at the materiality of information in our real lives can feel like a stretch, and perhaps even leads to the kind of conclusions and discourse about intelligent agents and neural nets when thinking about our cyborg selves.

A more helpful approach to cyborg theory, at least for me, can be found in Petersen's “Mundane Cyborg Practice” (PW required...). In this work, Petersen grounds the materiality of information in the mundane ways we use the web, such as checking email, looking up recipes, and doing research:

However by focusing on the integration of the internet into everyday life, I wish to return cyborg (theory) to the direction of the mundane situations and connections. I do so in order to demonstrate that the cyborg is not just an exotic figure, and in its mundane form it can push our understanding of internet use in new directions. The mundane cyborg informs us about the practice of human-technology relations in the everyday lives of broadband users.

In this manner, Petersen removes the fantastic from the notion of the cyborg. It's not that this idea of posthumanism “evokes terror” or “”excites pleasure” as Hayles describes (pg. 283); it's more that we've adopted cyborg practices while hardly giving it all a second thought. By seeing the mundanity of the cyborg, it's much more apparent how information technology has transgressed the borders of human/not-human, as it's our reliance on technology in our everyday lives that has created our cyborg selves.

It's how we cannot spell without spell-check, or write in cursive, or need wikipedia to help remember things that point to the cyborg turn we've taken.

In the first chapter of her work, Hayles talks about a future where it may be possible to “download human consciousness into a computer” (pg. 1). That's exactly the wrong model. We're not downloading our selves into our computers -- we're uploading our sociality. It's in the upload where we find our posthumanism, in our blog posts and flickr comments and arguments on wiki discussion pages.

We've become cyborgs through our connectedness, by integrating the mundanity of our social lives with the mundanity of the social web.

Dramadramadrama. What will our heroine do?

I've been dying to figure out a way to add some guts and drama to our AVs. Part of the problem is that we have a face that's as placid as a Hindu cow. We can use Yadni's emoter HUD that makes use of the built in facial animation to combine them, but the default expressions are very cartoonish--fine for when SL first started, and given the technical limitations, I can understand it. So what to do?

Steal ideas from comic books! And by the way, for people searching for terms like "steal second life clothing"? STOP IT. Sweet Mary, when you translate the linden costs into real life costs, a full outfit might cost you one or two dollars! Get a LIFE you cheap thiefs!

Sorry, /me steps off the soap box.

So, what do we do? We find ideas in comic books where the expressions are deliberately exaggerated. This one reminds me of the 1950's detective comic books.

Photography Tip: A trick about photographing facial expressions. What looks stupid at one angle can look perfect in another. This facial expression, for example when viewed from the front or above gives our model ginormous doe eyes. Not quite what we're looking for, but from below one does not see the full scope of the eye, and thus we have a slightly wide-eyed fearful look that is somewhat more realistic.

Den Verdacht hatte ich bei einigen offensichtlichen  Cyborg-Sportlern ja schon länger, jedch entpuppte sich der famos reißerisch betitelte Artikel doch nur als eine P.M.-artige Meldung aus dem Bereich der Robotik.

Wir sagen: Langweilig!

Actor Lee Majors, who played the part of Austin in the show, made the statement yesterday after a press conference about the alleged Bigfoot body revealed nothing.

"I watched the press conference and became suspicious when I learned that DNA samples of the supposed Bigfoot had been submitted for analysis," Majors said. "It was then that I knew the whole thing was a hoax."

Majors pointed out that his Steve Austin character had actually fought with Bigfoot, and as a result he knows that Bigfoot has no DNA.

"Bigfoot is an android, plain and simple," he explained. "That's the secret of Bigfoot. I know, because I've fought with it. I tore its f--king arm off!"

Majors also revealed why his character appears to move in slow motion in the television series.

"I had an eyeball, arm and two legs replaced with robotic parts so I could get the Steve Austin role," he said. "That's all the faster I could move, because my brain never adapted very well to the replacement parts. So the show's producers decided to add in some robotic sound effects while I struggled to move during action scenes."

Majors also said the crew had fun picking on him between takes.

"My bionic parts could be controlled remotely by a special transmitter the crew had in their possession," he said. "Sometimes they would make my arm punch my face and then they all would roll on the floor laughing. It used to piss me off, but I can see now how it might be funny."

(Photo by Bill Bertram, Wikipedia)

But many reporters, being fundamentally rat-brained themselves, have made the mistake of saying silly things like these:

To build the cyborg, Warwick, his colleague Ben Whalley and their team dissolved a fetal rat's brain. They then put the free-floating brain cells, or neurons, into an electrode-ringed Petri dish, where the cells quickly reassociated with each other and began randomly firing electrical signals. Electrical pulses sent through the ring of electrodes calmed down the neurons, and after a while the cells began to "learn" patterns among the external pulses. [from FOXNews]

Now the reason there are quote marks around the word "learn" is because it didn't really happen.

It is true that a network of 300,000 murine neurons (i.e. rat brain cells) are controlling that robot through 80 electrodes. It's true that the cells, which were dissociated in solution, spontaneously formed that network (which was, in my opinion, the most exciting part). But it is not a robot controlled by a rat's brain, for these are only brain cells - admittedly forming a primitive brain, but not a brain anything like that of a rat.

And it is most certainly not true that these neurons learnt how to control the robot - the researchers set up the robot and electrodes so that whenever the sensors detected a wall, it sent a 1 volt pulse to the neurons in the dish. And the neurons, being fully functional, were elicited into giving off an action potential. Just like neurons do when hit with an electrical stimulus of 1 volt (which is massive for such small cells, by the way). And this action potential, after it had been transmitted through a few neurons, was recorded and used (by a computer) to make the robot turn away from the wall. It is not the neurons in the dish that learnt to control the robot, but the computer that is reading the activity of those neurons (and the programming of that computer by human brains).

From a neuroscience perspective, the neurons have not learnt much. They have probably strengthened their connections to the electrodes, but it is a far cry from learning to control the robot. Those 300,000 neurons aren't really doing much that the 302 neurons of the nematode worm C. elegans couldn't do - in fact, they are probably doing far, far less.

Aside from the fact that the neurons formed a network spontaneously, I am unimpressed.

UPDATE: Steve Potter, a neuroscientist from Georgia Institute of Technology has commented on the blog Neurophilosophy, saying:

I see nothing new here beyond what we and others have been doing for the past 5 years. Believe what you read in peer reviewed papers.

So that explains why I, being a neuroscience student, wasn't at all impressed.

The evolution of the human species from our primate ancestors has been one in which our brain capacity has grown larger allowing us to focus on tasks previously impossible and allowing us to invent and learn, thus propelling ourselves into civilization and beyond.

The brain as ground zero in evolution isn't restricted to humans, much less mammals. British scientists have developed a robot with a biological brain. The intent of this project is to see "how memories manifest themselves in the brain, and how a brain stores specific pieces of data". Robots with biological brains bring up images of cyborgs and tinkering with nature. Suspicions will abound.

But don't count out the importance of the human brain just yet! Neuroscientists are telling us that the brain is the battlefield of the future:

Rapid advances in neuroscience could have a dramatic impact on national security and the way in which future wars are fought, US intelligence officials have been told.

.....

On the battlefield, bullets may be replaced with "pharmacological land mines" that release drugs to incapacitate soldiers on contact, while scanners and other electronic devices could be developed to identify suspects from their brain activity and even disrupt their ability to tell lies when questioned, the report says.

"The concept of torture could also be altered by products in this market. It is possible that some day there could be a technique developed to extract information from a prisoner that does not have any lasting side effects," the report states.

En 2050, nous changerons de corps à volonté et serons immortels, parole d'ingénieurs ! Des nanorobots circuleront dans notre sang et dans notre cerveau pour éliminer les toxines, corriger les erreurs de notre ADN, améliorer notre bien-être physique… Info ou intox ? Qu'en pensent les philosophes et les neurobiologistes ?

Lire la suite

http://www.telerama.fr/monde/envie-d-un-corps-tout-neuf-attendez-2050,32238.php

Actually, the robot, named "Gordon", has multiple interchangeable brains, each of which displays a different "personality" or type of behavior based on the particular chemical bath inhibiting or enhancing particular neural pathways. Without sufficient external stimuli, however, the brains die after a couple of months.

I find this absolutely fascinating and creepy at the same time. I'm not troubled by the idea of humans with cyborg limbs, but what these scientists have really done is to create a new, partially biological life form. I have no doubt that all kinds of scientific discoveries about how the brain works can come from this research, with possible benefits for people with certain brain conditions. But I am troubled by the line we are crossing here. As usual, scientific achievement is way ahead of the ethical framework that needs to be in place to guide it.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080813192458.ud84hj9h&show_article=1

Dianne Odell, of Jackson, Tennessee, was only three years old when she contracted bulbospinal polio in 1950. (She is not to be confused with another Dianne Odell, who made full use of her limbs and mobility by murdering several babies and burying them in the backyard.) She was sentenced then to a lifetime in a giant metal contraption that forced air in and out of her body, depending on the thing for her life. Her confined life was the envy of no one, save a few science fiction buffs who referred to her as “a true cyborg.”

As a young woman, Dianne could occasionally be taken out of her prison on a stretcher with an oxygen mask attached. Then she could enjoy a few moments of freedom, and in these precious hours, she learned to write with her feet. Sadly, as her health deteriorated, her muscles atrophied completely, and she was in constant pain. She relied completely on the iron lung for her breath thereafter. Needless to say, trapped, and completely motionless, there was little she could do by herself except talk.

And talk she did. She was chatty and funny. Though she spent a lifetime being spoon-fed pureed mush, and relying on others to wash her and care for her, battling pain for most of her sixty years, she was always in a good mood.

Modern, lighter equipment has for the most part replaced the iron lung, but in the ‘50s they were fairly common. Most users would not be sentenced to life inside, however, as their bodies would eventually resume breathing on their own. Stuck there permanently, however, Dianne made herself right at home. The massive contraption was painted cheery yellow- she affectionately called it her ‘yellow submarine.’ She had the noisy behemoth vividly decorated with colourful cards, notes, and mementoes. A screen for television hovered above her: Dianne could operate it with a special blow tube. An angled mirror assisted her to make eye contact with others in the room, instead of just the ceiling.

Dianne enjoyed school very much, though it was something of an ordeal to accomplish her homework. Classmates, family, and teachers helped by bringing her assignments and standing by while Odell dictated her responses. She graduated from high school and continued to study in university, enrolling in psychology. She excelled in her courses.

Dianne also used a voice-activated computer that helped her write a children’s book called Blinky Less Light. The book was about the tiniest star in heaven. Dianne wanted children with disabilities to know they weren’t alone. “It's amazing what you can accomplish if you see someone do the same thing," she said. Her book sold 100 thousand copies.

Dianne also left behind an unfinished autobiography, in which she relayed some of her childhood pain and her devout faith in God. She and her yellow submarine were wheeled to church occasionally when she was a young woman, but her health was unable to withstand the ordeal for very long. She was also baptized in the bathtub at age 13, during one of the limited and brief exits from the iron lung.

It was at church that she met a friend who was to become the love of her life, W.C. Jones. Jones was a bookkeeper confined to a wheelchair. He’d suffered a car accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down. The couple enjoyed each other’s company, spending evenings together in their medical contraptions, listening to country music or watching television. Physical comforts were impossible- even kissing was difficult, as Dianne could not turn her head, and Jones’ mobility was extremely limited. She accepted this with the same grace and verve that she accepted all of her limitations- with tremendous gratitude.

It is interesting to note the eerie similarities between Odell’s story and that of another long-term polio survivor, Martha Mason, now in her 70s, who has also lived confined inside the big yellow beast for 60 plus years. The North Carolina woman says her life has been one of joy and wonderful experiences. Could this machine be the cure for depression, then?

“I must be the richest woman alive,” Dianne Odell said, “and bells are ringing all over West Tennessee, for there are many angels among us. When you have faith, family and friends, you have more than enough to get you through any rough times in your life.”

Dianne welcomed people to visit her, loving their company and cherishing the times she spent with friends and strangers alike. Celebrities sometimes came, too, including Al Gore, who famously kissed her.

She lived much longer than she or anyone expected, spending more than five decades confined to the iron lung with only her head poking out, like a human turtle. In an unusual turn of events that no one could have predicted, it was not Dianne’s lifelong pain or illness that killed her: it was a power outage during a storm in May 2008. Of course the machine had an emergency generator for its air pump mechanism, should a blackout occur. But on this particular occasion, it failed to work properly. Dianne’s family was unable to keep her breathing, and after 57 years of living in her yellow submarine, she slipped away.

Visit writer Lorette C. Luzajic at www.thegirlcanwrite.net. She is a widely published poet with works appearing in Grain, Rattle, Modern Poetry, Kairos, The Fiddlehead, Quarry, White Wall Review, and many more. Her book, The Astronaut's Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos is available through her site or through indigo or amazon online. She is also known for her profiles and interviews with artists, writers, and interesting people of every ilk.

Um artigo recente da revista NewScientist descreve algumas experiências que foram efectuadas no sentido de produzir-se um mini-robô que em vez de ser controlado por microcontroladores, fosse controlado por neurónios de rato cultivados numa placa electrónica. Um verdadeiro protótipo de cyborg !!

ler os resultados da experiência AQUI

ver vídeo do robô em acção AQUI

......

- Southworth vs. Babalu foi adicionada ao card do evento de setembro e vai valer pelo cinturão dos meio pesados da organização.

- Josh Thomson e Billy Evangelista, ambos da categoria dos leves, vão participar do evento. A princípio serão lutas separadas, Thomson deve lutar contra um japonês em defesa do seu cinturão. Há possibilidade que Josh e Billy se enfrentem nesse evento.

- Ainda no Strikeforce at the Mansion II o brasileiro Cyborg deve aparecer no card numa eventual luta contra Trevor Prangley.

- Foi confirmado para o dia 03 de outubro no Broomfield Event Center em Denver o Strikeforce Payback. Alguns atletas já foram anunciados: Phil Baroni, Frank Trigg, além da luta entre o local Duane Ludwig vs. Sammy Morgan

This book raises many interesting points, and I would encourage you all to read it (Men and women alike). It addresses many issues people are afraid to confront, or refuse to confront altogether. It is written from an intimate and genuine point of view.

One point it raises which I find particularly frustrating is that of the name game. In the first chapter it asks "What is the worst thing you can call a man? Bitch, Girl, Pussy, etc. Is that not royally fucked up?" Also, she talks about the fact that a sexually active woman/girl/whatever is considered by society to be a big 'ol whore, while men who are sexually active are players. What the fuck is that? I'm sure, if you're a female, you've come across this sort of thing in some form before. This book urges you take action, even in the smallest way, because it can still make a difference.

There are still many battles to be won, especially for young women when standards for us in this society are growing more and more out of proportion on a daily basis. You can't look anywhere without seeing some kind of advertisement for beauty products that will supposedly transform you into this beautiful and perfect juicy cyborg woman that every man wants. BULLSHIT! I mean sure, embrace your femininity, but do it for the right reasons, not because you're trying to live up to some picture that's been photoshopped and edited in every way shape and form and printed on the inside of every cover of every magazine chocked full 'o SECKZ TIPZ! and HOW 2 LOOK HAWT 4 UR MAN!.

Fuck. More on this later.

John Woo and Shinji Aramaki's futuristic tale of cyborgs, bioroids, and humans spotlights the E.S.W.A.T. force of Olympus, a post-apocalyptic city.

Governments from around the world are about to join in a massive satellite-sharing operation. Terrorists attack from unexpected directions, causing turmoil in the city. The core of the E.S.W.A.T. team faces not only their biggest mission, but their most intimate challenge ever. Deunan, a hard-charging human, Briareos, her cyborg partner and love interest, and Tereus, the bioroid fashioned from Briareos's DNA must overcome excruciating obstacles to ensure the peace and safety of not only Olympus, but the world.

The motion-capture technology used for this film is much improved from earlier incarnations. Characters' body movements were the most natural I've seen so far. Unfortunately, the animation style felt far more appropriate to a gaming environment than a movie. My fingers got twitchy in expectation of game play that, of course, never happened. This blended animation style continually pulled me from the story so I could check out where they splurged or skimped on detail (ie: fine facial movements verses chunky locks of hair).

As to the story, I found the love triangle an interesting byplay to the larger situation. A conflicted Deunan deals with two versions of the same man. Set within the bigger frame of a terrifying social meltdown, this emotional situation adds tension to an already difficult day.

For the most part, the story was believable. Certain elements were predictable, but they were presented in a manner that will leave anime fans satisfied.

Hardcore fans might find this film a bit off the pace at times, but, overall, it'll be a fun title to add to your collection.

One other note for people who use CC: The captions are severely lacking. They don't

Teen Titans v3 08

Sigue Teen Titans v3: Primera Sangre

Teen Titans v3 09

Sigue Teen Titans v3: Raven se Alza

Teen Titans v3 10

Teen Titans v3 11

Teen Titans v3 12

Teen Titans v3: Beast Boy y Las Chicas