What makes you who you are?

How much can one change and still be yourself? Pondering this question led me to the next and more fundamental question, which is - what exactly makes you, you?

We change from second to second, literally picosecond to picosecond as our fundamental particles bounce around randomly. We are dependent upon the meat we live in (for now), which is easily altered or damaged, and even beyond our physical structure much of what we are as individuals is dependent upon the chemical "soup" within our bodies.

This came to mind recently as I was reading Accelerando, an intriguing novel in which the protagonist relies on technology external to his brain for processing power and feels like a very different person when that technology isn’t available. Humans will certainly become continually more “interfaced” with technology in the coming decades, to the point that human and device will become parts of a whole.

Other sci-fi books that I have read in recent years that address this theme in some way are Altered Carbon and its two subsequent books by Richard K. Morgan, also Peter F. Hamilton's Void series where some of the characters progress from being so called "natural" humans to enhanced humans with nanoscale biological enrichment to ultimately becoming non-corporeal beings in a virtual environment.

I don't have the answer, but it is an interesting question to ponder and perhaps write upon.

The 70 Online Databases That Define Our Planet - Technology Review http://ping.fm/XbtOR

New Energy Storage Blog

Check out the new Energy Storage Trends blog from PennWell, some great articles from the widely revered Pete Singer.

Technology Review: Thin Displays as Wristbands. Sweet! Widescreen Dick Tracy! http://ping.fm/VmADb

National Ignition Facility Fires Up

The National Ignition Facility completed the first dry run of what is at the moment the world's most powerful laser. The facility focuses on fusion energy research as well as simulation of nuclear explosions for defense researchers. Links here to articles from Wired and Laser Focus World.

Ipad frenzy revisited

I have owned an iPad for several months now, and I have to say that I am reasonably impressed. It is the 3G version and honestly does have some utility as an email machine on the road, and as an entertainment device. It doesn't replace my laptop, but I can do a number of the things on it that used to require breaking out and booting up the laptop, as well as some things that I couldn't do on the laptop as I don't have a 3G card for it.

The iPad should be lighter and more feature rich, and certainly needs to be less expensive, so its not ideal (yet). Despite these criticisms, I find the iPad to be a useful device, and my guess is that some of the shortcomings will be rectified in the next generation or two of devices.

Lots of competitive tablets are on the way, so expect the market to drive extensive innovation in the next few years.

Graphene Overview and Nobel Prize

A really nice article about the Nobel prize awarded for the discovery of graphene with links to a number of other articles about graphene from ElectroIQ which covers semiconductor manufacturing and nanotech / mems among other topics.

Roundup of Nuclear Energy

From Next Big Future . Fascinating graph as well.

Happiness and Sadness Spread Just Like Disease

Wired highlights an impressive study that provides strong scientific evidence that emotions really are contagious. The implications could be profound both for personal behavior choices such as whom to associate with as well as for organizations.

Short excerpt from the Wired article: "Happiness proved less social than sadness. Each happy friend increased an individual’s chances of personal happiness by 11 percent, while just one sad friend was needed to double an individual’s chance of becoming unhappy.

Patterns fit disease models in another way. “The more friends with flu that you have, the more likely you are to get it. But once you have the flu, how long it takes you to get better doesn’t depend on your contacts. The same thing is true of happiness and sadness,” said David Rand, an evolutionary dynamics researcher at Harvard. “It fits with the infectious disease framework.”

The findings still aren’t conclusive proof of contagion, but they provide parameters of transmission rates and network dynamics that will guide predictions tested against future Framingham results, said Hill and Rand. And whereas the Framingham study wasn’t originally designed with emotional information in mind, future studies tailored to test network contagion should provide more sophisticated information."

Japanese Powered Exoskeleton Now Supposedly Available

The manufacture Cyberdyne claims that strength can be augmented up to 10 times and that the battery pack will last up to 5 hours depending upon usage.

Now imagine the HAL exoskeleton unit with about 20 pounds of lightweight Graphene armor (I admit that's some years out) bolted on and the wearer carrying one honking badass gun or perhaps a slightly smaller badass gun.


You would have yourself a super soldier, at least until the battery runs out.

Everybody Dies! Elderly Scientist Predicts the Demise of Humanity.

Frank Fenner, a 95 year old Australian scientist predicts that humanity will be wiped out with 100 years, although he doesn't offer much detail other than saying "overpopulation and climate change".

What if Strong AI is Not Achieved?

The famous sci-fi author Vernor Vinge originated the concept of the technological singularity and offers one of the best descriptions of this potential event:

"It seems plausible that with technology we can, in the fairly near future, create (or become) creatures who surpass humans in every intellectual and creative dimension. Events beyond this event—call it the Technological Singularity—are as unimaginable to us as opera is to a flatworm."

I just discovered a talk from way back in 2007 that he gave on the topic "What If the Singularity Does NOT Happen?". Still highly relevant and very interesting.

Oil Spill Gulf of Mexico 2010 - Transocean Deep Horizon BP great page to keep track of the disaster http://ping.fm/klLVO

Great page for info on the oil spill disaster in the Gulf http://ping.fm/9TDrG

Metaverse Roadmap

Jamais Cascio at kurzweilai.net has some interesting analysis regarding potential paths towards the singularity, grid form analysis shown below.

Electronic Display of the Future - discussion of 5-10 year horizon for e-readers http://ping.fm/gOZWF

Typing merely by thinking - plugless brainjack kit invented ? The Register. Can't wait to be able to type and juggle chainsaws at the same time. http://ping.fm/ANJ3t

Less Diversity Is Needed in the Fire Service. What should we really value? http://ping.fm/XVibz

Google Going After Twitter: Google Could Unveil Gmail's Social Features Tomorrow http://ping.fm/sn3O4

My first ever mid-air status update! Like the mile-high club, but much less fun. The last bastion of solitude is now gone with inflight wifi

Found this a little late for Christmas, but interesting nonethelesss: Scientist deduces physics behind Santa's sleigh ride - from Small Times http://ping.fm/fRpuJ

Why no Flash on iPad or iPhone? (thanks to Tripp Wiggins for the tip) http://ping.fm/dpheG

Feeding the iPad Frenzy

Yudu is quick out of the gate with a white paper comparing all current and soon to be forthcoming major e-readers including the iPad along with some commentary regarding the e-publishing industry. Clearly there is a little cheerleading involved as rapid market adoption of e-readers is certainly favorable for Yudu, but one quote did strike me: “every fifth book now sold in U.S. is now sold as an ebook” according to the U.S. Book Industry Study Group.

Vampires apparently have it right - blood from younger mice reverse signs of aging http://ping.fm/auGaO

The Apple iPad: It's just ahead of its time | Molly Rants - CNET News http://ping.fm/UOQbV

The Apple Tablet Interface Must Be Like This - apple tablet - Gizmodo (a lengthy discertation) http://ping.fm/Lh9IU

With Redesign, Reuters.com Goes After Consumer Audience, interesting approach, they only 3 add positions on most pages http://ping.fm/sEq8s

Could Humans Detonate the Sun?

A Russian scientist has advanced a theory that we could indeed "nova" the sun utilizing thermonuclear weapons (nod to Next Big Future). This would require new technology to enable delivery of the warhead deep into the sun, but given the pace of technological development it's not outside the realm of possibility within 50 years or less.

I'm not competent to judge the soundness of his science, but I am bit skeptical. One reason is that objects of significant size traveling at great speeds and therefore delivering massive amounts of energy impact the sun on a semi-frequent basis and as far as we now haven't produced any catastrophic results.

A decent size asteroid smacking into the sun would likely produce energies orders of magnitude greater than a current day thermonuclear detonation. Additionally, one composed substantially of typical metals such as iron/nickel would likely penetrate a reasonable distance into the sun before dissipating.

10 Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist

Cool story from Wired on advanced weaponry

Nanocapacitors could be the next big step in energy storage - and in explosives

According to Dr. Alfred W. Hubler, Director of the Center for Complex Systems Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, nanocapacitors i.e. digital batteries could store substantially more energy than chemical systems. Dr. Hubler states "The maximum density of retrievable energy in nano capacitors is comparable with the density of retrievable energy from nuclear reactions."

They could also have potential as explosives "The rapid energy release of nano capacitors discharged by an electrical short makes them potent explosives, potentially exceeding the power of any chemical explosive."

You can read Dr. Hubler's article here and find some interesting conversation on this topic at Next Big Future.

Oregon profs plan giant robotic space cockroach warriors, http://tiny.cc/Nwap0. I love the sarcasm from the Register!