№ 256. Urbi et Orbi 2

Geopolitics

"Trump becoming president of the United States is no laughing matter. It is the height of irresponsibility for the people of a country that insists on leading the world to even consider foisting on it a dangerous, trigger-happy gasbag whose every pronouncement so far fails to pass the test of seriousness and maturity. If conservative Americans still have not taken leave of their senses, they should rouse themselves from this nightmare and fire Trump for his fundamental unfitness to be Potus."

№ 253. 21st Century Songs of Fire and Ice

Twenty-first century appears to be mirroring its predecessor period. From a bipolar world that emerged from the Cold War, we are once again getting more fragmented and multi-polar. After the realignments of nations in the Second World War to the disintegration of the Soviet bloc in the 1980s and the 1990s, spheres of influence have splintered.

Ball games are not safe with live ammunition and
civilian exposure.

№ 228. Jiro is a Borg

"While watching it, I found myself drawn into the mystery of this man. Are there any unrealized wishes in his life? Secret diversions? Regrets? If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough? Standing behind his counter, Jiro notices things. Some customers are left-handed, some right-handed. That helps determine where they are seated at his counter. As he serves a perfect piece of sushi, he observes it being eaten. He knows the history of that piece of seafood. He knows his staff has recently started massaging an octopus for 45 minutes and not half an hour, for example. Does he search a customer's eyes for a signal that this change has been an improvement? Half an hour of massage was good enough to win three Michelin stars. You realize the tragedy of Jiro Ono's life is that there are not, and will never be, four stars."

Ooma in Megamall has one of the best Gyozas in town.

№ 76. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 2

The VR Glasses actually look minimalist. They don't appear too android-like or,

if you wish, Borg-like. No matter, I like their by-line: "We believe technology should work for you---

to be there when you need it and to get out of your way when you don't." This humanistic bent is 

similar to the one advertised by Nokia some ten years ago about connecting people and about 

having rounded edges instead of sharp ones. Photos from googlepalace.

Cellphones, those hand-carried metal or plastic bricks we see, touch and hear everyday will soon be obsolete. That is, if "evil" Google (insert maniacal laugh track here) and its team of engineers will have their machinations fleshed out. Again, another augmented reality or Flesh + Machine specie. The Borg-like reality isn't really that far out or implausible anymore.

Seven of Nine with remnants of the Borg implants after she was
disconnected from the hive mind. startrekdesktopwallpaper.com

№ 39. Waking Up to Binary Dreams

"Tanging Ngiti", from Pinto Art Gallery, Antipolo City, Rizal

Two things: faster brains and more sophisticated thought processes. All artificial, all human engineered.

Ergo, hardware + software = awareness? Anytime soon? Maybe. Because of our longer lifespans, maybe even within our lifetime.



Faster Brains

"Computers are getting faster. Everybody knows that. Also, computers are getting faster faster — that is, the rate at which they're getting faster is increasing.

True? True.

So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness — not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties." (Time)

 

Magnet Funnies

 

By 2045, the article claims, man can become immortal. By hooking up to a computer and downloading his consciousness into its chips and wires a person will have a more durable home. His will and intellect will permanently reside in a less organic and, maybe, less destructible vessel made of ceramics, plastics, silicon and other metals.

They call the event Singularity. It's the transformation of our species into something that is no longer recognizable as such to humanity circa 2011. And I thought the Fringe series is still sci-fi by most standards in circa 2011.

Complex Thinking

"Kevin Kelly, a founder of Wired magazine, has written that there are at least a trillion Web pages in existence, which means the internet's collective brain has more neurons than our actual gray matter that's stuffed between our ears.

'The Web holds about a trillion pages. The human brain holds about 100 billion neurons,' Kelly writes in his 2010 book "What Technology Want".

Each biological neuron sprouts synaptic links to thousands of other neurons, while each Web page on average links to 60 other pages. That adds up to a trillion 'synapses' between the static pages on the Web. The human brain has about 100 times that number of links -- but brains are not doubling in size every few years. The global machine is." (CNN)

Awareness

There is already an interconnection, an infrastructure which is getting more integrated and sophisticated. If somebody can hook up to a machine and then gain access and control of this superhighway.... If people hook up and become linked.... will consciousnesses coalesce into a collective mind?

Will the World Wide Web wake up (W x 5!)?

2045, is it? I wonder what seed of human genius will spark this.

That will make humans the likely ancestors of the Borg. At least, until we actually come in contact with other extraterrestrial civilizations, including Borg-like creatures. Meanwhile, back to earth: I hope cybernetic implants are covered by our senior citizen privileges.

Is the internet conscious?

№ 38. The Empire Strikes Back

Windows 8. Can't wait.
Will you run on my black Mac?
Or will you just crash and quack?




Bento Box for Borgs and other hyper-sentient entities:

Windows engineering team, Delta Quadrant Unicomplex

№ 20. Can You Be My Friend?

Bento: Thanks S for posting on Facebook.

№ 11. Rilke at the Delta Quadrant

I stumbled upon this poem while, again, conducting a space exploration deep in the Delta Quadrant.

Thankfully, I skipped the Borg corridor. I didn’t want to be assimilated and forced another round of Talaxian beer and who knows what other nano ales.

In Celebration of Me (1909)

Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Annemarie S. Kidder

I am so afraid of people's words.

They describe so distinctly everything:

And this they call dog and that they call house,

here the start and there the end.

I worry about their mockery with words,

they know everything, what will be, what was;

no mountain is still miraculous;

and their house and yard lead right up to God.

I want to warn and object: Let the things be!

I enjoy listening to the sound they are making.

But you always touch: and they hush and stand still.

That's how you kill.

Bento Box:

"René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety: themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

He wrote in both verse and a highly lyrical prose. Among English-language readers, his best-known work is the Duino Elegies; his two most famous prose works are the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographicalThe Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. He also wrote more than 400 poems in French, dedicated to his homeland of choice, the canton of Valais in Switzerland."