Upgrade Yourself

12 Emerging Technologies For Voluntary Cyborgs

By Akela Talamasca on July 15, 2009

Science moves forward, and takes with it the human body. Over the centuries humans have adapted to live longer, healthier lives. And as the pace of scientific advancement continues, so with it does our ability to modify and improve ourselves to deal with the changing circumstances of our world. Some of these advancements are necessary for the continuation of life, others are for the specialization and longevity of the human body, while still others are to make us better, faster, and stronger organisms that can achieve the impossible. The following are thirteen advances in science that have taken us from “mere human” to “super human”.

Bionic Vision



Ever wanted night vision? Or double the visual abilities of “perfect”? Well, the bionic eye will be able to help. Currently it’s being developed to help blind people regain vision, but the field of adaptive optics is moving closer and closer to perfecting night vision and helping those with perfect vision go even farther. So, completely blind or with perfect sight, the bionic eye can help you see beyond the capacities of any normal human.

The C-Leg



The C-Leg is a military grade prosthetic limb with an intelligent system that measure’s your gait 50 times per second for real time adjustments. One of the strongest and most advanced prosthetic limbs in the world, it is the U.S. military’s choice for a prosthetic leg for its soldiers. Made primarily from titanium, this leg gives you more strength and durability than any human leg could. If you’re not in the military, it will set you back $30,000 to $40,000 though.

The XOS Exoskeleton



If you ever saw “Iron Man”, you probably said exactly the same thing everyone else did; “Where can I get one of those?!” From Raytheon Company of course. The XOS Exoskeleton can be put on like an overcoat, but once on the wearer can easily lift 200 lbs. with one arm. 500 times in a row. Without breaking a sweat. Minus the ability to fly and the lack of weapons attached, this is the “Iron Man” suit.


The Rocket Belt



Since the 1960’s, various forms of jet packs and rocket belts have been successfully tested and used. If you have $125,000 lying around, you can own your own rocket belt and fly for up to 30 seconds at a time. Or you can spring for the more advanced T-73 Jet pack and fly for a full nine minutes, and up to 11 miles. At the very least, you can have one hell of a morning commute.

The Bionic Ear



Currently the most advanced bionic ear system involves an implant, software, a processor, and a wearable earpiece. The system allows you to hear the world more accurately and gives you much better audio acuity than any human ear can offer. It’s used with the hearing impaired to improve hearing, and can be used to increase general hearing with a healthy ear.

The Bullet Stopping T-Shirt



Lightweight, comfortable, but definitely not cotton. This brand new nano-technology involves spinning a fabric constructed out of carbon nanotubes. It’s seventeen times tougher than Kevlar and four times tougher than spider’s silk (which is five times tougher than steel). The bullet may still leave a mark, but rest assured, the bruise will fade.

Cybernetics



How about controlling a machine with your mind that reacts faster than your body possibly could? Or watching a monkey control a robot walking on a treadmill with its mind halfway across the world? One of these has already happened, and the other is quickly approaching. The ability to control a machine with your mind is one that’s created villains and fueled fantasies. Cybernetics research is quickly evolving to the point where, “if you can dream it, you can do it” isn’t just for Disney anymore.

Neural Implants



Neurotechnology is an emerging field that implants a device into your brain, allowing you to control an external device through thinking. Currently a quadriplegic man with one of these devices can control a machine the size of a room with only his mind. So, depending on the device you’re controlling, “superhuman” is a bit of an understatement.

Regeneration



The Holy Grail, or “Cup of Life” has been a quest of many, and obsession of few, and become a possibility with modern technology. Scientists are currently developing methods of regenerating limbs, organs, and body systems with the help of stem cells and current natural technologies found in other organisms. Because who wouldn’t want a fresh heart when they’re sixty.

Mind Reading



Ever wanted to know what someone was thing, or tell if they were lying? Well, now you can. At least, you can if you’re a scientist with a neural imager. By measuring a variety of neural activities, scientists have begun to read people spatial memories. If they can tell where you are (or have been), it’s just a matter of time until you can hold a device up to someone and know if he/she is, in fact, just not that into you.

Teleporting



“Beam me up, Scotty” isn’t just a famous line from television and the movies, it’s the idea of teleporting someone instantly from one place to another. Any who wouldn’t want that? You could go anywhere, anytime, at a moments notice. While science hasn’t gotten quite to that point, scientists are exploring the real possibility of teleporting matter beyond atoms (which has been done, incidentally) between locations. So if you can’t send yourself somewhere, maybe at the very least you could send a camera, or a monkey.

Breathe Underwater



If you’re a diver, you know how arduous a process it is to go diving. You must make sure all your gear is ready, re-check everything, and have a very short time while underwater because of the small amount of oxygen you can take. Now at least, time is no object. With the creation of an underwater breathing vest that filters oxygen out of the water around you, feel free to stay underwater as long as you want.

Researcher says white folks are fleeing MySpace for Facebook

By Lauren Gard of SF Weekly

Last week, a study showing that older folks have flocked to Facebook was all over the news. But word of an even more provocative trend waits in the wings: white flight from MySpace to Facebook.

That's according to self-styled social media pundit Danah Boyd, who earned a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley's School of Information in 2008. After four years of quizzing teenagers across the country, she contends that white kids are more likely than their nonwhite counterparts to abandon MySpace for its rival, or to choose Facebook in the first place. MySpace has become the "'ghetto' of the digital landscape," she said in a talk at the recent annual conference of the Personal Democracy Forum, an organization that explores how technology influences politics.

She compared the exodus of whites from MySpace to Facebook to the exodus of white city-dwellers to the suburbs over the past 50 years. As Boyd (who is white, by the way) put it, "Many of us have habitually crossed the street to avoid what is seen as the riff-raff."

"MySpace is a little ghetto, a little wilder, a lot more diverse in terms of my interactions with people of different backgrounds," concurs Jonell Stooksberry, a 36-year-old white Bay Area legal assistant who still checks her MySpace account every month but scratches her newer Facebook itch daily. She prefers the user-friendly layout of the latter, and has reconnected with far more friends there than on MySpace. But Stooksberry kind of misses the "ghetto." Back in her MySpace days, she was often contacted by guys she didn't know in hopes of connecting — and they were rarely white.

Sunset resident Kellye Denton says she stopped using her MySpace account in 2008 when the other volunteers she met during a Peace Corps stint in Morocco encouraged her to join Facebook, which they all belonged to. In the year since, she's witnessed most of her other friends — who, she says, come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds — follow suit. She'd never thought about her leap as a social statement at all, and she'd never been all that big on MySpace to begin with.

"MySpace was just a little too much for me, a little too cluttered," she says. "There was too much going on. And Facebook was newer, which was a draw."

San Francisco–based social media consultant Adrian Chan questions whether there are other explanations for Boyd's findings. "I'm uncomfortable with class arguments," he says. "It could just be a matter of teenage style, that kids start with MySpace and when they go off to school, Facebook is what they move to."

Boyd said she didn't have time to comment for this story. We did notice, though, that she has 250 more friends on her Facebook account than on her MySpace account.

Stupid Ass Products

Things I hate about working in an office

If you never worked in an office you may not have heard these, but I am certain they are common in any workplace. Personally I have worked in three or four different offices and these phrases drive me crazy

1."Shoot you an email" and "touch base" ---Really? "shoot" the email? With a cannon? some sort of advanced rifle? And which base? first? third? home plate?

2.Circle Back--You know what? Let's table this and circle back to it after we've clarified our other objectives." 

3. In Concert--"Yes, we are in concert with that date","We are in concert with that concept", "I'm in concert with that point of view"

4.With pleasure-"It doesn't pleasure me to tell you this, but..."---that shit is creepy

5. Drill Down-- Would you "drill down" on this issue?

6.In the weeds--You're "in the weeds."

7."Are we on the same page?"--If we're having this conversation clearly we are not on the same page, so why do you ask

8. Or a cunt will mess around and say something like this-- "We need to leverage our technology to create synergy that will capture the white space in the marketplace while capturing the loyalty of our existing customer-base with cross-sell opportunities."--This means nothing, I dont know what your talking about

9. Paradigm-- Paradigm Shift---does anyone know what this is, have you ever seen one--can a paradigm just get up and shift

10. Let's keep that on our radar

11. "Bandwidth", when used to refer to anything but technology

12. "Wearing hats"-- Let me put my manger hat on, etc, etc

13. "What can I say its a monday"/"Sound's like someone has a case of the Monday's" and "Happy Friday."- are by far the most annoying and are typically used by the most purposeless person in the office, i dont know how to respond to either and I usually just walk away

Other include:
"Batten down the hatches"
"Circle the wagons"
"Hit the ground running"
"Brainstorm"
"Lets get our ducks in a row"
something like this-- "Ok I want you to de-prioritize your current items and make this your primary action"
"pick your brain"
"Working hard or hardly working?"--this is actually one of the most annoying ones
"for your f.y.i."


Other thing I hate are:

-Inspirational messages used in an email signature
-Email stationaries--they usually freeze my outlook
-Any type of acronym
-Unnecessary hand gestures
-Office cliques 
-Someone walking up and just standing next/or over me and saying nothing until I say whats up
-Getting trapped outside the office with someone you particularly can't stand, say on a walk to the train station, etc
-Someone trying to be a hero with the thermostat
-Being forced to look at a photo of someones ugly child
-Having your named shortened--typically by a white person

The degree to which these thing annoy is usually dependent on who is saying/doing them

Alright Everyone

Its time to grow up

Mayor behind watermelon e-mail to stay on council

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. (AP) — The mayor of a small Southern California city who was criticized for sending an e-mail showing watermelons in front of the White House says he will give up the mayoral post but remain on the City Council.

Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose heard calls for his resignation this week when he forwarded an e-mail showing a watermelon patch on the White House lawn under the title: "No Easter egg hunt this year."

Grose has apologized and said he wasn't aware of the racial stereotype that blacks like watermelon.

Officials in the Orange County town say Grose will officially resign as mayor on Monday. But Grose told KCAL-TV on Friday that he intends to remain on the City Council.

The mayor is a council member chosen to serve in that position by fellow members of the five-seat council.

This Recession Joe!!

I was broke before that recession, and I don't see much difference between then and now. The thing about being broke is, if you've been broke enough you know how to survive, on these nickles and dimes to the point where it looks as if you not broke. So even though its a drought right now, Im still finding away to get money. So you can to....Now Im not trained economist, by I do know a few basic things...and I am torn as to whether or not I agress with the stimulus and that basic shit thats going on. I realize that it is politically unacceptable to do nothing. Everyone want to get reelected, so their jobs kinda depended on it, but this all this government intervention does not seem like the right thing to do. Think about, we built this system, where by we let the market solve its own problems. Thus, if we keep proping up Citibank, Detroit, etc, how can the market effectively eleminate this unviable insitutions? If the market doesn't do that then it seems to me the problems with the economy are not going to disapate. 

Many cite the great depression as the model where government spending, brought the nation out of a major recession. Which is the Keynesian theory as to how the US shoud have gotten out of the recession. However Keynes himself  acknowledges that if it where not of the massive spending of WWII, the US governemnt would have not spent enough to lift the nation of the grips of the rescession. Conversely, many conserative economist, argue that the excessive spending done by the government during the recession that in fact prolonged it. These economist, cite a recession that occured in the early 1920's, during which that government took next to no action. This recession that lasted just under a year and had many of the same precursers as the great depression.

 Now I am aware of some of the European models, of governemnt support if private sector interest. However, the key difference is these governments, full out nationalized these entities. Now if the US government does that, then that opens a new discussion. However we are current creating what are being called, "zombie banks", I do not fully understand what a zombie bank is, but I am assuming that this entities are mindless, and directless at the moment.

Everyday, I lean more and more to the ideal that we need to let failing insitutions fail and new viable ones spring forth. It is the time between the falling and the rising that scares me. I hope that I am wrong in saying that this is going to get worst before it get better, and that president Obama is right, in saying that this is the being of the end.  

International McDonalds Commericals

My guy was talkin a little bit about this over on flightmanual, I found it interesting and figured I'd expand on it

The thing i find most interesting about this commericals is the fact that everyone eats mcdonalds. Here you have germany, isreal, japan, and korea, all very different places eating the same foul crap thats eaten everywhere in the US from Chicago to Boise, ID. It stil amazes me how small the world has gotten.

tamron hall and the drag queen

shake up societal norms

Im watchin Grease

Something about seeing John Travolta prancing around inspired me to compose a lil note. You know, nobody sing through the normal course of their day anymore. I think the world would be alot better place if we just started to sing out our disagreements. maybe had a choerographed dance to go along with it. everyone takes themselves way to serious now, we all to lighten up, (including myself) and sing and dance. 

I Started NOTHING!!!

Oh what a day, what a day. I break hearts, but now I geuss I've driven her crazy. Going around, puttin my business out there, tryna get me beat up blah, blah, blah....whats the point of you doing all this? I hope you feel better, cause I give excatly no fuck. So tell the LBs and other anything you want...Im built to tough for that,  everybody gotta die sometime right. crazy ass better get some business.

I held it down for the GO!

During the inaguration of our 44th President I did what I could to make our world a better place.

The Black McCain's

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95937654

Call This Shit NIggaz II Men

YO!

This is a response to "The Lies We Told Our Daughters" and "The Lies We Refuse To Belive". I'll begin by criticizing Blackmon's grandiose ideology which I've audienced time and time again and Vivranthing's use of "boys" and "girls"..."boys are great!" The first was a conjure of excuses mostly written on his own behalf, festooned (word to McCain) with ambiguous language that has become all too familiar. We all know this man be bullshiting. Poetry, yes. Journalism, no. The second, a "girly" faultfinding whine that was prepared by failed experiences with "boys". Both were enjoyable and made some great points but as an asshole I had to come at yall and also add my 2 cents.

The issue of commitment with men can be viewed as influence by society because it is, just as all behavior is. However, its a given. Lets instead try to point out some specific and down to earth reasons. Young men, as vivranthing would call them, "boys", can sadly sometimes only be viewed as such. Many young man will run through as many women as they can before finding the maturity needed for commitment. While they desire love and companionship just as their female counterparts, the main concern is sexual experience. Just trying to fuck...(I really don't feel like writing any more after that statement). Their young! For a young man to be tied down is trully illogical and limiting. A man is a conquerer and every possibility life offers is his conquest, and a foolish girl can easily get in the way. For young men who have big ambitions and are adventurous, its not a good look. Young women, wouldn't you much rather wait to find a man who has seen his likes and dislikes and has been made ready to decide if you're "the one"? Not to mention he's accomplished, wise, and made more of a man.

Ima save you a whimsical trip like Blackmon's and say, basically, the issue here is maturation. For young women, if you're young, educated, aware, and ambitous, being with a man isn't what you need right now anyway. Yes, society suggests that you're incomplete without one. Don't fulfill this ideal. Make strides in completing yourself. Thats what makes you more desireable to men. Not a 20-something year old girl that is looking for a bubble gum relationship. Meaning, maybe you need to grow up yourself. If you grown, find someone thats grown. If you still growing, find someone to grow with. Also, know that some niggas never grow up. These are the grown men who cheat. Only invest with a young man whose future you can see and appreciate. For young men, just be real about yo shit. As Vivranthing said, don't be a bitch and lie. If you just trying smash, tell a bitch to do the math. Find a girl thats down with that. When you're both truly mature enough to know what love is and find someone to share it with, congratulations, but you gotta live first to find that.

In closing, I urge all young men and women, teenaged to mid 20s, to persue casual relationships, if a relationship is what you desire. Otherwise, yo ass is gon be hurtin, and you gonna be crying like a little boy or girl... If you 45, married, and your man's cheating and for some reason you're reading this blog, my advise is yall need to grow up too...get me....Wicked

The Lies We Told Our Daughters

Yet another in a long list of female friends has asked me way men can’t commit. So I am gonna lay this out one good time, so if I am ever asked again I can kindly refer the young lady to anygivensomeday.blogspot.com.

 

In short, the answer to the question is simple. From birth men are thought to hunt. We are told the world and everything in it is yours to conquer including women. My son, you have been craved in the image of you father and of his father and so on and so forth to God. We (men) all believe we are reflections of God himself.

 

When a man or boy comes home, to his family the first question after, “How have you been?” is “How have the girls been treatin you?”. This is asked not only by the men in his life but by the women as well. Mothers and Fathers instill this within there sons. Extended commitment can rarely be given until a man in his heart feels he has conquered as much as he can. Honestly, I believe no man can ever be fully satisfied with himself; he knows there is always more out there.

 

Now, to the lie. Women are told, encouraged and pushed onto this ideal that they must find a partner at all cost. My daughter, you are but a half you must find he who completes you. Don’t let him go. Like him, then love him and by no mean let him go. Commitment has always been in baby girls mind, but why? Simple, mothers are simply reverberating what they have always been told. Fathers, and this is the far more interestingly, know, they know what they have been told and what they told their sons and they know the hunter is out their and it would pain them to see their daughter be but a conquest.

 

I am sorry my girl, for I to shall lie to you.

Baby Gap Shits

I think when I hit 20 I went insane. Infuckingsane. It's all society's fault. I blame society because they low key tell women that their biological clocks are ticking and they need to find and marry an eligible man with high-earning potential to ensure the most glorious life possible. All of my ambitions have always been anti-that sentiment, but somewhere and somehow between late August and now I seem to have bought into this notion and some strange series of events led me to be looking at childrens and maternity clothes on gap.com. The shits are cute don't get me wrong, but damn. That's a slippery slope to fall down and as a friend pointed out to me now I'm just out here pressed..The whole "blaming it on society" thing was a joke though because I, like Governor Palin, believe wholeheartedly in the notion of "personal responsibility".

I have this crazy flaming liberal public policy professor who is quite insightful albeit vulgar..anyways my point is that the overarching theme of the class is that we're supposed to step out of our comfort zones as ideologues and use facts to attempt to solve present day issues of public policy. Take the financial crisis, for example: You have Republicans who have always been advocates of free markets and that the government should keep their hands out of Americans' business yet that attitude (of the Bush Administration) and deregulation are what have us in the mess we're in. Now, despite any and every piece of evidence that points to the contrary, many would like to allow the free market to sort out all of this mess and furthermore haven't an inkling to admit that those concepts have only worstened the crisis. Plus we've got Sarah Palin out here like "Oh boy if we could only just get all the corrupt, greedy mfs on Wall Street out everything would be a-ok. You betcha!" Fool.

I always get to these points where I have to digress and circle back to my original intent so ima do that right about.....now. Basically, I think I let my ideologies get in the way of the facts, and the truth is that I can't do it all. I don't think anyone can without having to make some types of sacrifices either personally or professionally. That doesn't mean that what we do actually decide to do won't be great- it probably will. Blackmon pointed out how fast 8 years goes by by comparing it to the fact that 8 years ago I was in 8th grade and has it seemed like 8 years since then; not really. Sometimes I do with I was back in the day when things were cool, but with age comes new responsibility and new opportunity and whether we like it or not there comes a time when you just gotta grow the f up.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

 

So for the first time in a long time I got caught up in a lie. Nothing big, a no harm no foul type of thing. Instead of riding out the lie to the end I decided to fess up and own the lie.

 

Now, let ask the question, why do we lie and is it justified?

 

Personally, (I say this because I haven’t done the scholarship on the matter) I lie for both necessity and for shits and giggles. Often times I find that a given situation warrents a manipulation of the truth. You know one has to spare feelings from time to time. I am not speaking of telling someone they look nice when they don’t, that just pretentious bullshit. I am speaking of the situation when a simply lie can be the difference between crushing someone puny world and keep them floating. Other times, a few lies can keep me in good spirits as I watch peoples heads explode.

 

Controlling your life is key to you survival. Lying is one of those tools that we can use to do this. We all seem to operate on an individual basis, thus there crucial tools of manipulation become vital. But is this justified? I’d say only when it serves to your advantage. Is that morally right, no of course not, but one owes it to ones self to operate in his or her best interest right?

High Quality Bonds=High Quality Yields

I don't have much time, but I feel an urge to write about something that's been on the brain for a spell. I can't claim complete credit for the idea; it's from a Ben Stein Op-Ed in the NYTimes called "Lessons in Love, by Way of Economics", which also isn't that revolutionary of an concept to reasonable people. Despite my relative youth the notion of mates, marriage, family, life, etc. has been plauging my thoughts of late. One thing in particular that I would like to highlight is the process of choosing among members of the opposite sex in a manner that will yield the best results and acquisition of a scarce resource (in this case love) possible.



I'm going to discuss two types of boys; on one hand we have a traditionally Southern gentleman(?), perhaps, who would seek to make you into an effective housewife and child rearer while he leaves the house every day to conquer the legal world and make lots and lots of cash. Great. It is widely known that one of the main reasons why marriages fail is due to a lack of financial security, thus the key to wedded bliss is that comfort in knowing you don't have to argue over the cash, a concept made even rosier when there is one sole bread winner. A life like this would be greatly appealing to a vast array of women, especially when you factor in the bang for the buck and slower pace of life one could lead in the state where everything is bigger. He's nice and all, and sure he'll listen to you babble on about liberal ideology and how we can achieve a better world and affirmative action and feminism and equal rights but at the end he just nods his head and thinks about what a great subservient role you'll play in the relationship. It's been iterated to me lately that women should "know their role" in society, and utilize their intellect for things such as raising chilren in an effective manner, making sure the floor are sparkly clean, and making sure the toilet seat is clean after son 3 of 7 children aims it the wrong way and gets piss all over the wall. As for me, I have a starkly different idea of what my relationship with a mate will look like, which includes a New York Times (nice n' liberal) on the stoop every morning, an apartment with exposed brick walls (in a major metropolis), attending ALC yearly, working to alleviate educational inequality, and being bossy goddamnit.



On the other hand, let me briefly evaluate the mentality of another boy, he might be from the north-maybe. He can be rude, not very thoughtful crass, vulgar, call you a female-body-part, piss you off drive you insane and make you wish you'd never met him (this is a compilation of personalities that refers to no person in particular) BUT at the end of the day he loves your sass, confidence, intellect, passion, drive, focus, strong character and good heart. Odds are he probably can't wait to see what you're going to use that intellect to do in a career, admires your desire to to Teach for America while getting a Masters in Education, fucks with the CBC and places you in the top 25 percentile of women due to your confidence and ability to chill (oh yes).



In conclusion, I've found that the inherent difference is how these two starkly different case studies of men interpret the women's intellect; one would seek to suppress it and the other wouldn't mind unleashing it for good or evil. One pursues you to find a wife, put a ring on your finger and subject your body to ruthless pain and agony by being subjected to having 8 lb human beings rip through your vagina and eventually wind up looking terrible (I digress) and the other sees beauty in your ability to hold them down and keep them sharp; you might start to feel like becoming a feminist when dealing with ole boys' antiquated views, but I for one sure as hell wouldn't mind giving up my power for a fresh breezy who might know who Saadiq is, fucks with an SLR & sends zshares on the regular. All in all, in the words of Ben Stein, "Junk situations can look appealing and seductive, but junk is junk. Be wary of it unless you control the market".

Echo Boomers where art thou

What are we, what is our generation? No great war, just a shameful one. How will we be remembered by our children’s children? No great depression. Only a credit crisis/house crunch/bank failure. This belongs more so to our parent than to us. I’m speaking of what Wikipedia defines as the Millennials born between 1982 and 1994. More directly I’m speaking of what Wiki calls the Echo Boomers, my generation, born from 1987-1994. We are embedded with technology.  Most of us have no memory of the Cold War. We came of age in the new millennium, but inherited the problems created by our forefathers; a planet that fucked, an economy that’s fucked, a government that fucked and most of all a society that sold its soul long ago. With that I wonder, what will be our legacy, who will be our hero’s, what will write our songs and poems, our great movies, what will be our great contribution. Or shall we become the new silent generation, worst still will we have a chance to do anything at all.

Shout Out to my mans

Your gonna have to forgive me, but I completely forgot this cats name. But what is important is this shirt. I met this guy in class today and I asked him about the shirt. He told me that this is his way of giving back. The shirt says, I RAQ Centless, whihc as you can plainly see has a double meaning. The Proceeds from the sales of this shirt will go to Hurricane relief in his homeland of Haiti. Streetlevel and grassroots movement alway catch my attention. I won't be buying a shirt, because my pockets aren't lined like that but I will break him off with a donation. I wish this guy much luck in his efforts.