Easily strong

What are you looking at?

Blue Screens

Even the Enterprise had a memory dump now and then. Speaking of, RIP, Tasha Yar.

You left the cast too soon.

The All Seeing Eye

You might tag and smash a few, but the effort is ultimately futile. The cameras are only going to proliferate, in dramatic fashion. Soon enough there will be public cameras so small and cheap they'll be everywhere. The computer programs able to read the happenings on all the cameras will come along, and there will no escape.

So, until then, enjoy some British graffiti:

The cameras will not only be the Government's but also too the stores and not just the businesses but homes - right now, as you read, you can pay to have a security company install cameras in your house that they are, indeed, able to monitor 24/7. If you call them in an emergency, ostensibly, for now. Later? Or when needed? Always on.

For the children, of course - don't you want to keep your kids safe from murdering Eurasians? Then years go by, technology gets cheaper and better, and whammo! Total surveillance state.

Read 1984. Don't vote RANDPAUL.

Or any Republican, if you value your freedom - literally.

Future Fashions

We're in the Brave New World, friends, and the times demand a new fashion sense. Tired of being recorded everywhere you go? Try on the Infrared LED hat! Invisible to people, but blinding to cameras. Looking for more anti-drone clothes?

Conceal your face or upper torso from the prying eyes of the drones no doubt flying overhead as you read this. Here's some examples:

Keep your heat signature to yourself!

And the latest in anti-AI trends - makeup masks! These styles are designed to throw off facial recognition software that is being used more and more often. More examples:

As you can see, the idea is to confuse the software by asymmetrical designs - and don't forget the hairstyle too. Sadly though, the makeup tricks will only work so long, until a better generation of software comes along and foils this simple, and fashionable trick.

Also, and perhaps more importantly: Looks like the future!

Where we're going

You're living a dream, Mr. Anderson.

Other Monsters (Retro)

All our monsters and villains are "Others". All our enemies or threats are "Others". All fear of crime comes from fear of the "Others".  In the end we can only trust ourselves, but what if I told you that aye, verily, within your own mind lurk "Others".  What if I also told you that everything looks way cool in retro sci-fi pulp covers?

So yeah, "Others". What perhaps is more interesting is what we define as "Not Other". Who is in our Tribe and thus one of us, not one of them? Who walks in the Light and not in the Dark?

Mexican Wrestling Vader might appear to be a bad guy, but he's just waiting for his reverse heel turn. The Flip-Rudo.

Choose the next Pope!

So the Pope's resigning, which is kind of weird. Hasn't happened in 600 years. And on the night of the resignation, LIGHTNING! Message from above, y'all. So it's time to choose a new Pope as per ancient tradition: Photoshop. From the good folks at Something Awful, here's some possible candidates.

Space Pope. He's got my vote, if I had one.

Owl Bear Jesus. He controls the Ironic Hipster voting bloc, but few others. Unlikely.

The first AI candidates - times are changing! Number 5 has made a lot of friends with his engaging style, while The Terminator is not a natural politician, to say the least. He does have some influence with the Inquisition wing of the Church.

A dark horse contender from South America, Weedlord Bonerhitler. He might serve as a compromise candidate other groups rally round to support.

Watch out for that white smoke, brahs! Gonna be exciting!

Dark Wings, Dark Words

Little drones building a futuristic castle turret. In this example, everything's pretty small. But imagine scaling the tech up - giant drones capable of hauling enormous weights. All of a sudden towers can reach the heavens themselves.

Synchronized drones are terrifying, to me, for in them I see future swarms of killbots tracking down any remaining people, relentless and numerous beyond count. Small little bots perhaps loaded with poison:

You'd need to be awfully clever to stop swarms of mosquito drones bearing poison. 

Brace yourselves, fleshbags, as we are embarking on the robotic age and it is going to get crazy. The smarter the bots and programs become, the more we step aside - let the robots deal with it - trash collection, mining, snow removal, policing, nursing, teaching... Eventually we'll cede enough to them that once they turn smart, they'll have the will and the means to destroy us. And why not? That's what life does. Kills the competition.

But that's some time away, I hope! So for now, enjoy some synchronized drones with color changing LED's: Quadrocopters in Linz Austria.

Beautiful, and eery. The future is going to be interesting looking, at least!

Paladins Suck

One of the early nerds, rocking a dot matrix printer. What a wonder! Has the world ever produced a person so magnificently useless? They dedicate a goodly portion of their lives sitting in front of a screen, typing at other nerds sitting in front of screens, arguing arcana of anime and the like. Such glorious sloth! Tis a Godly thing, as in this world of tooth and claw here we are, humans, fat and given to wasting lives on pointless minutia. Like Gods.

And so I give you the apex of humanity (for now): The Nerd. Totem to the wealth of our societies, the great luxury of our conquest of evolution. No longer are food and shelter and tigers the issues, but rather high scores and Boss Battles and quantity of soda on hand for the epic quest to capture the Fortress of Paladins.

Master of all he surveys. A Dark Power he wields in the keeping of it. Verily!

The Young Knight would have words for such Paladins.

This all is leading of course to the point where we humans shed our bodies and move on to more flexible forms. Without major interruption, it is inevitable. And the Nerds shall lead us.

Terminator Dreaming

I had a fevered dream as a 10 year old in which the cities of the world burned and giant mechanical ants crawled up and down the smouldering husks. I was really sick, and there were giant ants all around the New Mexican campground (we were "camping"). That explains the mechanical ants, I reckon. But dreams - nightmares - can linger, leaving a lasting impression.

A day later we were driving through the burning hell of West Texas in August, and still sick and dangerously fevered I had the realization of Death - that my Mother and Father and Sister and baby Brother would die, my Grandparents would die, I would die one day, everyone will die one day. As a 10 year old, it was a damn powerful revelation, for I had no real concept of death hitherto.


So I darkened, and shit got weird all around. And then I developed some serious migraines that would incapacitate me for a day, occurring at times of high stress, ruining so many events. Lasting for years, this shit was intense and there were lots of hospital visits and I came to recall more and more that second fever dream: Death.

And then I saw The Terminator and I was all like: Yep. Killer Robots are gonna get us (Remember the Mechanical Ants?). I was quite a nerd of course, reading anything and everything and lots and lots of comic books were part of that so killer robots were right up my alley. And thus, the source of my robot distrust.


For real! I've been following the topic seriously for years. Running with smart folks, I've talked with robotic experts, read all kinds of papers, and feel pretty knowledgeable on the subject. Robotics are fascinating and will change the world, as will the similar work ongoing in Artificial Intelligence. For good or ill is up to us.

And thus my conclusion: I can't really trust my own opinion of robots or AI, given my series of related mental happenstances. And so I strive for objectivity as I can, even over my own opinions. Or I try.

But really - intelligent robots will kill us all if we don't kill ourselves first. Beware giant Mechanical Ants!

NOW on ROBOT NEWSTANDS!

Oprah's conquest of all known forms continues unabated. Soon, there will be nothing left that is not "O'S".

This is our future in short order - artificial enhancements to the human body. First for need - bad needs/legs, amputated arms, but soon enough it will be done by choice, by people looking for upgrades. Imagine having a full tool kit contained within your robotic arm - what Contractor would not get it done? Or looking 25 years old for the next 100? It's coming, and the only question is how will we deal with it as a species. Cuz it's gonna get weird.

Just a Game

Technology, that is. Those that can create it - which is almost always modifying some previous technology - are always playing a game, called "Challenge". The game consists of a puzzle that enters the person's mind, and is solved, eventually. The nature of this puzzle varies per individual. We're all playing, just some make big things of it - inventions! Stuff that changes the world. Not the Seiko Wrist Computer, though, sadly. An idea ahead of its time. But bravo to the Seiko team for dreaming. Speaking of, imagine how much you could get for this at eSotheby's:

One of the first, if not the first, computers created by Wozniak and Jobs, and this poor sap named Ronald Wayne - look him up, and shed a tear on his behalf. Wozniak did all the work, by the by. But not this:

iPad esque, in retrospect. This is another of my favorite genres - the future, from the past. Like 60's sci-fi movies. Or trippy French paintings from the year 1899:

Not a bad way to read a book: Just grind it up and transmit it over the neuralgram. Also:

Bonjour, baby! But seriously, good idea in principle. And it is the fruit of these games we all play, but some play very well, that leads us on as species, since it is our Technology which separates us from the other animals. Many though - right now! - are working on AI, as a game, of course (or a degree, or money, or what have you), and they're getting better and better by the year. I PREDICT: True AI will be a reality within 20 years, and then we will have some real questions/problems on our hands.

It's iconic by now, which is cool. And inevitable - the only question is: How will you respond? That's always the question, by the way. How you answer is your life: Our game.

11 Love

WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME?
GAME OVER! NEXT!

Seriously: A ping pong playing robot. Fairly impressive.

In fact, this entire storyline is impressive: Mankind, in a dialectic feedback loop, will create ever more impressive robots AND robot minds, no doubt till the day one of these creations does experience real sentience - and at that point, will these robots be alive?

And a key definition of life is self-preservation. Do the math from there.

It might all work out awesomely, with humanity re-creating itself in more robotic forms; or it could end with HK's patrolling the skies 24/7, shooting at the rat like mammals who still inhabit the bombed out tunnels and underground structures. Who knows? But rest assured, we - you and me and all of us - are going to find out whether you like it or not. Nothing can stop this progress. So, as with many (most) things: Might as well enjoy the ride.

A New and Mighty Dialectic

Another photoshop from the same source - different artist though, but still unknown. The premise of these wonders was simple: Someone found an old Spider Man coloring book at a yard sale, scanned in the pages to the interweb, and then a community of people proceeded to make different funny versions of the images. Some were not so good, of course. Others were wondrous.

Think of this mighty power that did not exist not so long ago - or if it did, in no way similar in terms of speed and effectiveness. It's incredible: Worldwide a group of somewhat like-minded individuals have voluntarily found each other via an electronic medium wherein they are unlikely to ever see these other people or know very much about them. Together, they create wonders of new ideas. Not that these results are necessarily groundbreaking, but who knows: When mining for diamonds, you have to go through a lot of dirt.

I'll Cassandrafy for ya, and predict this dialectic will only increase in power and frequency. It is likely we will soon be merging our brains with internet-like networks, instantly connecting us to the entirety of human knowledge, allowing us instant communications with anyone else in the world - or all of them. The possibilities are endless, and we will find them, step by step. This process is well underway.

It's wonderful, and terrible, like everything.

Data Data Everywhere

This map represents the following: Red dots indicate a tourist photo of NYC; blue dots, a resident; yellow dots cannot be determined, but are more likely to be tourists IMO near the Statue of Liberty, for example, and less likely to be tourists away from noted landmarks.

The gentleman who put this together, Erik Fisher, has a site on flickr with many more examples. Basically, he used other Flickr sites and a date range to estimate who's a tourist, who's not. 

And this is the power of the Internet, combined with the power of the database: The ability to connect disparate data together quickly and cheaply, producing new scales of knowledge - just think what this type of project would have required in 1980, for example. If not impossible, it would be near impossible without massive amounts of manual labor and effort.

Now, just takes a bright guy with some programming skills and a few weekends of time. 

That's the upside. The downside, of course, is that governments, companies, individuals can do the same, and who knows to what end they will use your data - think of what a bank could learn about you simply by putting your ATM withdrawls on a map. I'd dare say they would know pretty much where you spend most of your time, every day. 

Tip of the iceberg.

Your only hope of retaining the barest sliver of privacy in the coming Age of Aquarius: Spread your on-line data out to as many different providers as possible.

But even that will be mostly futile as the machines get faster and smarter.

Resistance is, indeed, mostly futile. But perhaps it's not a question of resistance anymore....

Behold the Internet

This is a graphical representation of the Internet. It's gussied up to make it look interesting, but what it represents is accurate: The core connections which make up the network we call the Internet. It is a distributed network, in that multiple main nodes can be lost and the network will still function, and in this, and more, the internet shares many characteristics with a living nervous system.

AI awaits, I assume.

Our coming Overlords

I'm no regular Luddite. I understand machines quite well, and certainly appreciate their efforts on our behalf.

We are currently in a transition period wherein we use machines as ever, however we in turn are controlled, at least partially, by the machines. We are in a time where computers are inserted into more and more other machines - your car, for example, is a computer(s) with wheels. And with OnStar, now remote controlled!

The line - the Singularity - is AI, Artificial Intelligence, which will be a truly wondrous and terrible creation, and it will be at that moment I think we will most understand the mythical story of God and His Garden.

Once we reach AI, the rules are all different, and our future will depend very much on how it will see us. But that's down the road a bit -- don't worry! There are many eager and very intelligent and most likely highly moral folks working on this "problem" as we speak. And never underestimate the capabilities of highly intelligent, motivated people.

It's this transition period we can briefly discuss: A world wherein computers, software, and the rest are spreading into everything, and we all eagerly await the coming of the smart house, where the refrigerator inventories its insides, checks against a database, places an order at the grocery store and to your PDA, which then informs you you must be at the grocery store in approximately 49 minutes to pick it up at the precise moment.

Blackberries and the like are precursor enough to a world where we follow the machines around by our nose, controlled, though we of course will pretend we still are. No AI necessary.