Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Revisit: Human v2.0

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

BBC Human v2.0Last month I pounded out a post about the implications of our seemingly inevitable immortality — when man becomes machine, or machine becomes man.

Sounds silly, but myself and expert technologists are dead-serious about that “inevitable” part.

Probably not within our lifetime (if you’re reading this in 2010), though. I’d wager at least one future generation or, even likelier, a couple of generations down the crazy road of technology.
Unless you’re as optimistic as Ray Kurzweil.

This is all to admit my ignorance: When I wrote that, I had no idea the BBC produced a fantastic show called Human v2.0 a few years ago.

The sub-1-hour special taps into the minds of visionaries and scientists alike who wake up and go to bed thinking about this stuff. When they do sleep, of course. (more…)

Music by the ‘Click of Death’

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

If you’ve used a computer long enough, chances are good that you’ve heard it:

The click of death.

It happens (inevitably) when your hard drive physically fails to read some data, signaling its soon-to-arrive death.

More specifically, the drive arm swings quickly back and forth across the data plates/disks because it can’t read data, creating a clicking sound that can prompt a tech nerd to nearly experience a myocardial infarction. I’ve heard the dreadful sound twice in my days on Earth, and each time it sent me running to a computer store to buy a new hard disk.

So anyway, I’m in the market to rebuild my desktop (running out of space, my data backup plan is crummy, I like a techy challenge, etc.). While I’m brushing up on RAID configurations, the latest hard drives, backup/recovery solutions, etc. when I stumble across this: (more…)

Tracking the oily devastation

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

If there’s one thing to definitively say about the Deepwater Horizon oil leak, it is that it’s bad.

Really, really bad. Dire. Catastrophic. Disastrous. Etc.

And it’s getting worse:

On that last point, we can expect more of the same from coastal states near the Gulf — and soon. (more…)

On immortality

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Immortality. Something more esoteric than I usually brave to tread, so please cut your mental parachutes and join me in free fall. (Don’t worry, I packed us a backup ‘chute.)

First, some back story:
This March at a science writers mixer, I met Rita King — CEO of Dancing Ink Productions, IBM innovator, mayor of Loveland, writer, and so on. Suffice to say, she wears a lot of hats.

I mined advice from King in anticipation of the then-upcoming social media panel. We spoke about good presenting techniques, social media trends, virtual and augmented reality technology, and increasingly more far-out and futuristic conjectures that nerds tend to have after drinking one too many Black and Tans.

So it goes.

Today, King invited me to comment on her recent post at The Imagination Age about filmmaker/Current TV host/personality Jason Silva‘s Turning Into Gods, a new full-length documentary exploring immortality.

Here’s the trailer:

From my limited vantage point, Silva seems very bright-eyed about a future with immortality in it.

Good for him!

Me? I think it a future with immortality in it is profound and exhilarating. But it also freaks me the hell out.

Allow me explain. (more…)

Social media time machine: The post-panel post

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

SWINY’s “Social Media in the Next Decade” was oodles of fun to present at, and I’m super grateful for my slot on the stage. In particular I want to thank Robin Lloyd, David Levine, Ann Marie Cunningham and the others I have failed to mention who helped put this together.

Fellow panelists David Dobbs and Nancy Shute taught me a boatload, not to mention the great questions asked by the audience. Overall, I thought it was an engaging exploration of where the hell this social media thing might be headed, both for the science writing community and in general.

Back-patting aside, below are the goods as I promised: my presentation and data. (more…)

The digital citizen

Friday, April 16th, 2010

Anonymous Internet guy, courtesy Stian EikelandReady for something fun? Then crank up your credulous dial and tune in… below is what has been on my mind lately:

Imagine Bob.

Bob is an ordinary guy with an ordinary computer, an ordinary amount of time to goof around on the internet, and an ordinary appetite to socialize.

Now imagine a world in which Bob lives, is not on Facebook, and in most cases has no idea that you even exist. (more…)