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- Apr 15, 12
Fun with…putting electrodes on either side of you head? I know I’ve written about hacking body and mind but not sure about this. Especially some of the DIY 9V battery stuff in the linked phys forum at the end
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=7943&st=0
- Apr 10, 12
A little while ago I wrote a piece about body hacking, choosing paths to alter our perceptions and the ways in which our bodies react or behave to certain stimuli. Something about it though had me thinking, the majority of those things discussed are based on the idea of an adult training themselves in different environments, so how would the body perform if it was under those different conditions from birth, or even before. As a child grows many aspects of their growth can be altered by their intakes of nutrients, climate, atmosphere and I suspect gravity. So would the children who grow up say, in an underwater colony 40m down be significantly different to those who grow up on the surface.
As I’ve mentioned already we know that a child’s nutritional intake and activity levels can both effect the shape that they grow up into. It’s also fairly safe to say that environmental conditions have an effect too, for example children who are raised in thinner atmospheres tend to develope lung capacities to compensate for it. Also children are raised in warmer climes tend to have different skin colourings, even when genetically they are predisposed to a particular shade.
How would such changes as pressure or gravity effect growth though. We can see some examples of how a reduction in air pressure can effect people, but how would an increase change things. Would those living in extremes of air pressure have lower lung capacities again to make up for the increase in gas? It seems a likely proposition, although how the overall bodyshape itself would change is a difficult matter to ascertain. As most of the body is liquid there’s no discernable reason that there should a great change in dimensions as pressure will remain constant throughout, although I guess larger hearts might develope to counter the extra force required. It is possible as well that people may be dumpier if they operate in aprimarily upright orientation.
Gravity seems likely to effect height, with those developing in weaker gravity ending up much taller and probably with weaker bones. I would guess that the converse may be also true and those who grow up in stronger gravity are shorter but also have much stronger bones. Muscle strength is an interesting one as I suspect it depends a lot on the conditions but like bones it seems likely to follow that the stronger the gravity the stronger the muscle tone that the children develope.
So how do we hack our children? How do we make them stronger, faster, healthier and more durable? Is taller better from a developmental point of view? My immediate reaction here was to write for having the children grow tall, but tall may not necessarily be a good indication of anything. Without any certainty on how height fits with the above criteria, it seems likely that raising our children in Strong gravity with a thin atmosphere would be the best option.
How children from each cope with the changes on longterm basis becomes is a completely unquantifiable subject though and unlikely one that we can experiment with.
- Apr 08, 12
There’s something good about having a space of your own to actually work in. To spread your crap around on and carry out any little projects or moments of creativity that you want to undertake. I’ve missed having that over the past year, and without realising it have become fairly unproductive with my free time. While I haven’t had a desk to sit at I’ve not done much in the way of artistic things, I’ve hardly written anything and I’ve not broached any new skills for making things.
Now a big new ikea desk sits infront of me with everything nicely laid out on top of it. Ihave white paper down with my camera over it for photographing things, I have my laptop with room to have second monitor and proper keyboard and mouse along with it and I have the little things on shelves at the sides like scanner and stationary. This is my new spot, it’s in the heart of the flat and I like it.
Hopefuly I’ll be able to start being a bit more creative now, especially once the internets in. It’ll be both a blessing and a curse to have back but there’s so much convenience to it that being a part of today’s society without it would be a nightmare.
- Feb 18, 12
So I finally caved and entered the smartphone world. My god it’s addictive and, to a certain extent at least it’s taken the place of my laptop for some of the day to day checking of things online. It really is far simpler to flick through the articles using the little touch screen than it is wading through them on the larger laptop.
My laptop still has it’s place though, it’s just had to concede some of the more mundane tasks to the phone. There’s really no way I can type on the phone with nearly the speed or consideration I can with a full keyboard. Having a full display as well makes a difference for some tasks as well, and it still feels more relaxed working on a full screen as opposed to the little one. It gives you room to view the whole of your work and not just the part that is relevant for that moment.
Connectivity is also an benefit of the laptop. I can plug in the extra storage options as required and just add extra hard drives or the like easily. To a limited extent the same can be done on the phone with memory cards, but it really just isn’t as easy.
I’ve been through the initial app frenzy that I’m told everyone goes through and there are some stand out useful choices. Among them are the following,
Google reader: My addiction to the site for managing news information can now go mobile. In fact this is what I think will remove me from the laptop more than anything. I’ll probably still come onto a computer for any more serious editing of my subscriptions though.
Evernote: Although a bit over featured for some things (especialy making shopping lists), I like the synchronisation and the ability to see my notes from anywhere.
Astrid: Similar to the above but for tasks, I can make it sync with my existing tasks on Google.
Google+: I was initially suprised at the lack of a Picasa app, expecting some amazing way to show off the online photos. Here’s why it’s missing – the way that the G+ app shows the photos is awesome. The chat facilities here are also really useful.
Facebook: Facebook becomes so much less unwieldy and clunky a tool when not using the web pages. It actually becomes a sensible way to follow people, although there is still a fair amount of dross you can wade through should you feel so inclined.
LOVEFiLM: Makes it very handy for those moments when you see a film and think “ooh that could be interesting”
Admittedly I’ve not given a lot of attention to the paid apps, these are all from the free side of things. Any suggestions of things I should have are appreciated, especially to save me time or effort looking through the paid stuff.
- Feb 12, 12
I’ve been enjoying Google’s Solve for X project, the good ol’ chocolate factories equivalent of the TEDx Talks. In fact it serves almost the same purpose of getting people who are experts in their fields to talk on their subjects. Of those I’ve watched so far though Neal Stephenson’s in particular struck me as being quite good at voicing a distinct problem that we have in society today; the lack of big advancements. There’s no grandeur, no massive construction projects that inspire awe and wonder at the abilities of human kind. We’ve worked on a lot of small things, driven miniaturisation to new levels and learnt a lot about our worlds basic nature. Our ability to push the frontiers of our world outwards though, opening new frontiers and resources has ground to a halt.
Looking back at some of the great ages of engineering projects and exploration they often go hand in hand. During the Victorian era, The British Empire was in full swing, opening new frontiers around the world. I’ll be the first to admit that their methods were at times more than a little questionable (and I have a feeling I may have written about this before), but they did bring new things for our scientists to work on, opened up amazing resources and spread power across the land. During the same period though there was also some of Britain’s greatest engineering works as well. Brunel and his peers drove bridges and trains across the land, built ships that pushed the boundaries of what people thought possible and tunnelled in places not previously considered.
The 50s and 60s saw something similar after the second world war. Science was seen as the great saviour of everything, sci-fi was at it’s most optimistic and tensions between superpowers drove space exploration to carry us to the moon.
Since then we’ve slowed and become quite introspective, stagnating to some extent. If we’d continued at the pace we had then our solar system was to be our oyster. 2001 wasn’t a ridiculously outlook for it’s time, everything in it was a feasible and considered movement forward in science and technology. We need to work to bring this excitement and wonder back. There lies the solution to our problems.
Take for example space requirements. We have a growing population and, unless we (as the human race) want to start thinning our numbers we need to find a way of making more room. We need to spread to new areas, meaning we need to spread off our comfortable seat on the land and start opening new frontiers. Space is the obvious route, as ultimately there is a ridiculous amount of room although there are practical limits to how far and quickly we can spread. In relatively close proximity though there’s the Moon, Mars and the asteroid belt all open to the possibilities.
We also have the oceans though, where colonies could be formed to work with the wealth of resources that is covering about 2/3 of our planet. Maybe by living in conjunction with the ocean can help us to better understand it and look after it in a more considered fashion.
Another problem that might be worth considering is that of CO2 release into the atmosphere. Whether you believe in the changing of Earth’s climate through CO2 release aside, it’s very hard to deny that altering the balance of gases through the burning of fossil fuels is a bad idea. So why not try and turn that CO2 into a resource. Huge amounts of effort at present goes into developing forms of carbon lock in, although ultimately I think one of the best methods is still the use of plants. Plants need space though, which brings me back to my comments above; let’s start taking the solutions to this off-world. As an example CO2 could be bottled on earth and taken to off-world greenhouses, creating a warm and humid atmosphere for a crop to thrive in.
Why aren’t we making these big leaps? What pulled us back?
I think the answer may lie in the changing attitudes to science and particularly the few that the advancements of the past have driven some of the problems we see today. Nuclear fallout and pollution, weapons and oppression. Some of the uses the science has been put towards have not been in our best interests or has been pushed carelessly, without though of the consequences. I don’t we should be shying away from big advancement’s though because of this, we need instead to learn lessons from they way we got things wrong and apply these to future projects and develop our design processes appropriately.
How can we re-start the optimism we need? What can I do? I’m not in a position to really commit the big projects as one man. However I am in a position to voice my support, to be optimistic in my own ways about what we can do and what we can achieve and to try and spread the word. Science can help us move on. Science can help us advance. In the 50s we looked out with optimism, wondering at the possibilities in sci-fi and we should again. Learning lessons from our difficult times but striving on, outwards and upwards.
- Jan 10, 12
- Jan 09, 12
The other week I was having a lesson on the use of different mixes of gas for diving, primarily on the use of various forms Nitrox, although also including the use of tri-mix and heliox gas. Afterwards though I was struck by the idea that this is really a form of human body hacking, using an understanding of the way the body functions to get more from it and as a result led me to consider what other forms of body hacking there might be.
By controlling the gases that we are breathing we are taking greater control of what is being dissolved in the blood itself, most notably the amounts of oxygen and of nitrogen. With simple Nitrox mixes (ranging from normal air with about 22% oxygen through to 50% oxygen) you can strike a ballance between the depth you are going to and the length of time you are going to be under for. Longer dive times will require more worry about the amount of Nitrogen dissolved in the blood, so having a mix with a greater amount of oxygen in it can help to remove this as an issue.
Ultimately what this is is an example of how, having studied what the human body requires in order to operate additional equipment has been added to enhance the performance and ability to function in new environments.
This in turn led to me thinking about how exactly we can modify our bodies behaviour. I posit that there are three categories we can classify modifications in,
Additions: Building equipment that joins onto the human body in some way. This could be in the form of the breathing gear for diving, sub-dermal implants, pacemakers and at a very crude level piercings and tattoos could also be considered to come under this.
Physical Training: The most obvious item that falls under this category is exercise. I hesitated as to whether this might classify as a hack or not and indeed you may notice that through this I’ve used the word hack less and less as my assuredness that it applies to all of these things waned. However ultimately though I think that specific concentrated efforts of particular types could be called hacks. By training in particular ways you can condition different muscles to be more attuned to particular motions.
Mental Trickery: A surprisingly broad category this once you start to consider it. At a basic level, forms of relaxation and meditation could be lumped into this, as through a decided action we are altering our perceptions and behaviours. I think that sensory stimuli could be classified here as well though, meaning that, for example, Heston Blumenthal’s use of music to alter peoples’ perceptions of flavour could be considered as mental trickery.
Now I’m aware that a lot of forms of activity may fall under more than one of these. A diver for instance may use equipment to facilitate his breathing, physical training to ensure he is fit enough to operate in the environment and mentally he needs to stay as relaxed as possible. The nature of the task hasn’t changed, however through a combination of all these factors he has improved his ability to operate in the new environment.
It becomes an interesting mental exercise to consider what might be done in order to perform differently or better under different circumstances. For instance could a different sensory input effect our ability to endure or use air more efficiently. Would a taste or a smell effect our bodies performance.
It also becomes interesting to start considering on a smaller scale what experiments on could be performed on yourself. Personal hacking if you will.
- Nov 27, 11
On a lighter note we saw distant worlds at the Royal Albert hall the other week. Never having been to the Royal Albert hall I’d never considered how big a hall this actually is and until you’re inside it’s hard to consider. I’ve been to opera houses before, like the Sydney opera house, however for sheer dominance internally this is the most immense performance hall I think I’ve seen. It truly is epic.
The music itself was also amazing and, combined with the enormous screens showing montages of videos and sections from the games was an awesome show. It did make me realise how much though I’ve seen of art from the Final Fantasy series and it’s influence on various media but how little I’ve actually played of the majority of the games. There are bits of a number of the games I have played at various times but I’ve never completed the stories of most of them and I haven’t played any of the newer games in the series at all.
So we’ve decided to work our way through them.
Now the decision to do this is a big one for me. I’m notoriously bad at finishing games, even when I enjoy the plot and the atmosphere they portray. I’ll get to a part that takes me more than a few goes to surpass and then I start to lose heart and eventually get distracted. Hopefully with a bit of help though I can stick with them this time.
So to begin the first of the games, Final Fantasy I, as it was re-released for the Game boy Advance.
Starting the game is a familiar thing for anybody who has ever played one of the many many Japanese RPG games out there. It’s a top down world view and combat is wonderfully simple and turn based. It’s almost the exact formula that Pokemon has made Nintendo an absolute bucket load with (although this was produced first). I love this and will openly admit to having played two of the Pokemon games to completion and having dabbled with several of the others.
My choice of starting characters has very little basis in knowledge of the game (although they seem to be serving me well so far). A dark mage was a must, simply for coolness sake and, although I like the white mages costume too (and saw a girl with an awesome dress based on this at Distant Worlds) the aristocratic musketeer look of the Red Mage won out on this occasion, especially as he has far better combat stats.
To balance these two I then have a warrior and a monk. So my party hopefully has a good balance of Straightforward combat and magic capable characters. After maybe 5 hours of intermittent play they came to be something like this,
and now after about 23 hours of play they look like this,
As you can see things have advanced a lot. I’ve got two crystals now (of the four) so I’m guessing that I might be in the region of half way through (wild stab in the dark really). SO far, as can probably be told by the fact that I’m still playing, it is good fun. I’ve explored the main lands about as much as I can, especially now that I have my airship and know the general lay of the land. Even so there are still new bits I’m finding to get into underneath and new dungeons I’m finding to explore which bring their own new challenges. It really has settled into an exploring to advance the story though a lot of the time. Once you’re in a dungeon you do tend to settle into a routine until the objective is obtained (the dungeon itself rarely contains much in the way of puzzling) and then puzzle comes from trying to work out where to take your key items and what to do next.
Having said all that I haven’t felt the need to do much in the way of grinding and it does play as if I’m trying to advance the story of this small band of saviours and rescue the land. That in and of itself I think is what Square have tried to keep, with varying degrees of success throughout all the FF games – you are part of the plot.
It’s not all doom and gloom either and throughout the game there lots of little moments of humour and referencing,
Time will tell where the story will take me (although I’m sure a few people could tell me already) but as of now, I think it’s going pretty well.
- Nov 27, 11
It’s been a busy time of late, of ups and downs. I’ve seen some great events, but what I hope to be the last of this years final tragedies has come in the form of the passing of my grandfather. He was a special man and one that in foresight I think I should have learnt more from. I certainly respected him in his way, but there is much that I think I can learn from him that I have yet to either realise or know.
I’m not normally one for writing about other people specifically or about personal matters online but I feel that in remembrance of him something is deserved. It took me a little time to consider what I would write about. His sailing was certainly a major part of his life, as was his work on the early days of the transatlantic cable and his position in the community. He helped others in so many ways and was a respected member of the greater community of Oban.
I’d like to write something about him but I think it’s going to take some time and care to do it justice so I’m afraid for now at least it will have to wait. For now though I’m just going to post this picture from West Highland Yachting Week 2005 when he was still sailing and winning
- Oct 11, 11
This ones been brewing for a while, bear with me.
As a cyclist, it seems to be a common theme to encounter a lot of people who view the road sharing between cyclists and motorists as a battle of two sides. Each side in this battle is clearly defined and must abhor the other, fearing them for the crazy, unpredictable ways. In most cases, as I’m sure you know this is bollocks. The majority of both sides are relatively calm and polite, although they may exhibit the odd moment of minor internal anger have no desire to kill, maim or otherwise harm the other side. There are however things both cyclists and motorists can do to ensure all round happy road use.
Motorists are expected to know, be aware of and follow the highway code and many of the relevant things are clearly documented (give space when passing, wait for slower moving road users to move out the way etc). So these are the easy ones (and yes they even apply to you oh drivers of white vans). Cyclists however don’t have this same expectation and I believe that this drives a lot of the anger against them from motorists. If cyclists want to be treated as road users then they need to behave as though they are road users.
This is if anything the key point that I wanted to make. Cyclists need to behave in a way that ensures that other road users see them as such. The most commonly broken rule for this is Traffic lights and pedestrian crossings. When these say stop, as a cyclist you may be a lot smaller and nimbler and wondrously good at avoiding things but this still means stop. Not charge when you think you can make it. Simply stop and wait. It won’t make everyone your friend, but it will help make sure that people know that your there and having to wait within the rules just like they are.
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Tweets
- @unsteadyfooting it's not true though! Thor at least certainly won't have graduated and does Bruce's graduation really count for hulk?
- @gonetothesea1 blog!
- The Future, Probably http://t.co/vsfQzIuZ a nice essay on the futures of William Gibson
- http://t.co/CpPrfe7V this is what the gov uses for net advice
- @TheHiddenPaw when i touch and hold on the url i get a menu bar come up with cut and copy on it, & can use the menu key to get share page
- No network, no phones. Lightning strikes again.
- @aefaradien show them all up by making better coffee http://t.co/erxuAytR (i can be a bit of a coffee snob at times)
- @unsteadyfooting or that could just be the circling creditors (kaw)
- @unsteadyfooting I've not even set foot in a record shop for who knows how long. You can tell the cold fingers of death will take them soon
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- @tsuki_chama I use my my s2 pretty heavily most days and it will do the day happily.not tried to see how long economical use lasts
- @gonetothesea1 twas good.i kinda lost interest in middle,but think was more to do with my attention span.Some v good characters and scenery
- @gonetothesea1 we saw the best exotic marigold hotel on friday and I spent most of the film just longing for the chaos and life there
- Also, how are so many greatest games lists made without keen 4?
- Have really modern phone, now spending my time trying to play old dos games on it. Shame they just aren't very responsive
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Posts
Kilian’s Quest Slow motion 1000 frames / second (by sebastien montaz-rosset) - Awesome ultra runner. Check out some of the directors Wingsuit videos too
Interesting debate on transhumanism. I can’t say that I see much problem with the modifications and as long as people want them then they can go for them. My only personal problem is when there start being issues with where the consciousness and if that consciousness is the original.
- An argument for exploring new worlds
It wasn’t intended to be, but I believe at least some of the arguments at Tsuki_Chama’s blog can be leveraged for exploration and expansion in new realms.
- Zen Habits on travel
While I can’t say that I agree with all of the sentiments expressed for all of the time, Some interesting travel options over at Zen Habits,
- Travel without money poses challenges that make holidays more fun | Mark Boyle
Read here (the Grauniad via Treehugger)
