Jay Walking - Digital Style

The Tech Journal has a terrific piece detailing the knowledge people have about cloud computing. 

“Cloud Computing” and “Cloud Storage” (in short "Cloud") is a vast network of computers and servers which preserves information and allows access to those information from any device that has an Internet connection. In other word, the "cloud" allows sharing of files, information, storage space and resources over the Internet. Based on this "Cloud", Wakefield Research conducted an exceptional survey of 6 days this month. During the survey, more than 1000 US citizens had been asked what is “cloud?” Major US citizens answered that the "cloud" was related to weather.

It gets better

Some people answered it as “pillow”, some referred it to “drugs” and some pointed it
to “toilet paper”. 

After reading this, it reminded me of Jay Walking, the funny bits Jay Leno does on the Tonight Show in which he asks people for their take on subjects ranging from current events and movies to history and geography. Needless to say, some of the answers will astound you. 

Eye Candy

Have followed Cassini for years because eye candy like this cannot be denied. Enjoy

One Point Perspective

Kubrick // One-Point Perspective from kogonada on Vimeo.

Terrific video from kogondada showing why Stanley Kubrick rocked.

Perception

Sometimes, yours truly puts up an image showing just how wondrous nature truly is. This gem comes from Physorg in an article titled Small Droplets Grow Differently. The raison d'ete for said image is

Fine dew drops on spider webs, blades of grass, and even insects can lend them breathtaking beauty. And, examining them very closely, one recognises that the drops themselves form astonishingly regular and aesthetic patterns. For the first time, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation in Göttingen have now comprehensively investigated what laws these drops obey when they originate and grow in size. Elaborate computer simulations and experiments show that in particular the beginning of this growth phase proceeds differently than previously thought: the smallest droplets grow notably faster compared to their larger siblings. This new knowledge is especially important for irrigation technology and refrigeration.

Enjoy, the article has other pix just about as cool as this one. :)

The New Minimum

This visualization shows the extent of Arctic sea ice on Aug. 26, 2012, the day the sea ice dipped to its smallest extent ever recorded in more than three decades of satellite measurements, according to scientists from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The data is from the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Special Sensor Microwave/Imager. The line on the image shows the average minimum extent from the period covering 1979-2010, as measured by satellites. Every summer the Arctic ice cap melts down to what scientists call its “minimum” before colder weather builds the ice cover back up. The size of this minimum remains in a long-term decline. The extent on Aug. 26. 2012 broke the previous record set on Sept. 18, 2007. But the 2012 melt season could still continue for several weeks. Image credit: Scientific Visualization Studio, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 

Any questions?

Face Off & Then Some

Within the next few years, we, the people, will have our faces scanned and put into a database courtesy of a universal face recognition software program the FBI will be giving to local police. 

The new facial recognition software is unique in that it will hook up any agency that makes use of it to a central database. The software will allow access to a “Universal Face Workstation” where the officers can compare any given photo against 12.8 million photos in the database. Moreover, police will also be able to add further context to the images on the database by cross-referencing them with other images.

FBI claims that it will include only the photos of booked criminals in the database and that it wouldn’t take the images from social media sites to enhance its image repository. However, to many, this seems too good to be true. Critics have cited that this would inevitably lead to an infringement on the basic rights of the citizens.

While reading this claim of artificial limits being placed on the code, the end around this limitation will begin with the police stating they need to be able to put local criminals into the system the FBI does NOT have in their database, thus allowing, in effect, the app to be expanded to include anyone who's face falls under the gaze of the ubiquitous cameras that are going up in towns and cities throughout the US. 

But there's more.

In addition to privacy concerns, UAW has another weak spot: It still isn’t that great at tracking people. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported how human analysts still trump machines when it comes to comparing and identifying people from photographs. Poor quality images or bad lighting, for instance, can render facial recognition almost useless.

One thing that is true is that the software is advancing rapidly—and developments show no sign of slowing down. Aside from the FBI’s facial network software, companies are turning to facial recognition technology to take snapshots of shoppers in order to offer them customized deals linked to Facebook preferences. It’s enough to make you reluctant to show your face in public again. As Anonymous hacktivists have pointed out in a new video, however, there are some alternatives. Options include walking about with your head tilted at a 15 degree angle, caking your face in make-up, or wearing a plastic mask.

When this tech is combined with the NSA's construction of the largest spy center in the world in Utah, the notion of our right to privacy, though not explicitly written in the Constitution, becomes but a dream forever relegated to the dustbin of history.

But new pioneers have quietly begun moving into the area, secretive outsiders who say little and keep to themselves. Like the pious polygamists, they are focused on deciphering cryptic messages that only they have the power to understand. Just off Beef Hollow Road, less than a mile from brethren headquarters, thousands of hard-hatted construction workers in sweat-soaked T-shirts are laying the groundwork for the newcomers’ own temple and archive, a massive complex so large that it necessitated expanding the town’s boundaries. Once built, it will be more than five times the size of the US Capitol.

Rather than Bibles, prophets, and worshippers, this temple will be filled with servers, computer intelligence experts, and armed guards. And instead of listening for words flowing down from heaven, these newcomers will be secretly capturing, storing, and analyzing vast quantities of words and images hurtling through the world’s telecommunications networks. In the little town of Bluffdale, Big Love and Big Brother have become uneasy neighbors.

The surveillance state looms.

The Domino Theory :)

This is V writ large :)

When More is Less

In the US, Less is More is not certainly the case when dealing with healthcare according to the
NY Times:


When it comes to medical care, many patients and doctors believe more is better.

A closer look at big issues facing the country in the 2012 Election.
Economy, Planet, Security, World and Health.

But an epidemic of overtreatment — too many scans, too many blood tests, too many procedures — is costing the nation’s health care system at least $210 billion a year, according to the Institute of Medicine, and taking a human toll in pain, emotional suffering, severe complications and even death.

The primary reason for the 210 billion overcharge is the fact the US system is profit oriented, whereby more tests, drugs and treatments mean more money for doctors, big pharma, hospitals and insurance companies while costing the insured and the government billions in cost over runs and needless patient suffering.

As you’ve doubtless heard, this country spends far more money per person on medical care than other countries and still seems to get worse results. We devote 16 percent of our gross domestic product to health care, while Canada and France, where people live longer, spend about 10 percent.

“We spend between one fifth and one third of our health care dollars,” writes Ms. Brownlee, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and former writer for U.S. News & World Report, “on care that does nothing to improve our health.”

Worst of all, overtreatment often causes harm, because even the safest procedures bring some risk. One study found that a group of Medicare patients admitted to high-spending hospitals were 2 to 6 percent more likely to die than a group admitted to more conservative hospitals. (doctor notes/prescriptions) billing (claims) to hospitals/lab/mri/Xray (medical data)

When looking at this, one sees complexification at work because medical systems also do not talk to one another with any degree of fluidity, thus raising healthcare costs even higher in spite of the rise of the web and the standardization of file formats the net has fostered. This metastasizing of healthcare complexity is similar to the complefication of the tax system whereby the US spends an estimated $250 to $300 billion each year to do taxes, a reasonable figure due to the 20 volume IRS created  Title 26 tax tome consisting of approximately 13,348 pages, thus guaranteeing lucrative employment to the highly paid tax accountants and attorneys able to game the system in order for the 1/10th of one percentrs to pay the minimum tax possible.

The Law of Diminishing Returns - When increasing amounts of one factor of production are employed in production along with a fixed amount of some other production factor, after some point, the resulting increases in output of product become smaller and smaller.

Sound about right, doesn't it?

Samsara

Had to put this in. Visual feast to the max. Simply astounding. 

Convergence

Convergence: The merger of previously distinct technologies into a new form; requiring new theories, new products, and new practices.

Residing on top of a never ending stream of bits, the cost/benefit impact of convergence entities driven by tech and science on nearly every aspect of civilization, looms ever larger with no end in sight as seen by this short & incomplete list of convergence tidbits courtesy of BRT.

Howard Beale - Network

• Voicemail
  Benefits: Only to organizations who use it. computer companies, government, big business. 
  Costs: To everyone who has to endure it. Your call is important to us
• Fracking
  Benefits: Quick increase in energy production.
  Costs: Environmental degradation to the extreme.
• Banking - The WS kind
  Benefits: Convenient way for depositors to handle money.
  Costs: With no risk the norm, thanks to tech, bailouts and government collusion, corrupt investing instruments have bankrupted the world. derivatives, credit default swaps
• The Net
  Benefits: The knowledge engine of the world and... the last bastion of freedom in the world.
  Costs: Loss of privacy.
• Education
  Benefits: Without it, society cannot advance, period.
  Costs: Education, as it stands now, is under siege because of 1. Enormous costs and
  2. The disruptive power of the net.
• Food Production
  Benefits: Without it, man dies and... once you have your first truly organic tomato, you will never want to eat any other kind. :)
  Costs: Frankenfoods, thanks to agribusiness, government compliance and tech, is becoming the new normal.
• The Body Politic
  Benefits: Needed as a means to govern a group of people.
  Costs: Getting elected is the only prerequisite for any politician to govern.
• The Press
  Benefits: Without a viable press, there is no democracy.
  Costs: News is Network writ large.
  I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore! - Howard Beale
• The Body Politic II
  Benefits: To the power elites.
  Costs: It's all about the money no matter the cost.
• Religion
  Benefits: A convenient way to explain the unknowable.
  Costs: Prejudice, intolerance & ignorance.
• Tech
  Benefits: Leverages science, business & education in innumerable ways.
  Costs: Tech has no morality. It's a tool able to be wielded with skill or stupidity depending on who's doing the wielding.
• Science
  Benefits: Designed to be disproved, it's the best way to learn how reality actually works.
  Costs: Like tech, how scientific research is used determines the kind of impact it will have
  on civilization.
• Medicine
  Benefits: The next 10 years, thanks to biotech, AI and robotics, will change medicine in ways unable to be imagined.
  Costs: The profit motive could kill medicine. See the US Healthcare system to see why.
• Fossil Fuels - Oil & Coal
  Benefits: Oil is an amazing energy resource without question due to it's energy density, portability and ease of handling while coal is plentiful in countries like the US and China.
  Costs: Peak Oil has arrived. There are no cheap sources of fossil fuel energy left. That plus pollution and CO2 greenhouse gases indicate the end of the road for fossil fuels is nigh.
• Alternative Energy Production - Wind, Solar & Wave
  Benefits: The tech is getting better, especially solar.
  Costs: Generating enough of this resource to meet the world's needs will be difficult at best.
• Finance
  Benefits: Without the mechanism of finance in some way, shape or form, civilization cannot conduct business in any way, shape or form.
  Costs: Fiat money, created from nothing and backed by nothing, is not sustainable. See Europe and the US to see why.
• The Status Quo
  Benefits: Happy motoring had it's day with cheap fuel and bountiful resources.
  Costs: Happy motoring, with it's creation of suburbia and destruction of the environment, has created an unsustainable modality of living that doesn't auger well as society moves further into the 21st century.

TANSTAAFL or...There ain't no such thing as a free lunch

Ebb & Flow

As I sit here listening to Playing in the Band, the extended jam the Dead played at RFK in June of '73, (a show yours truly truly regretted missing, especially with the Allman Brothers as part of the concert.) the ebb and flow of jamming, something I did a lot of at Berklee, shows how music resembles fractal geometry in it's feedback-driven seques from rest to intensity with interludes of pure improv at it's very best, something one sees with early Bob Marley or vintage Miles Davis, among significant others, who touched the sublime when the Gods permitted it as creativity just shows up on it's own accord, never to be commanded, a reality every artist accepts as one of the givens when dealing with the vagaries of the creative process. Enjoy.

Uncanny Valley

 The Uncanny Valley or when bots tend to look too close to being human gives one pause as we move further into the 21st century as seen by the new Ron Fricke documentary called Samsara.

The uncanny valley is the region of negative emotional response towards robots that seem
"almost human". Movement amplifies the emotional response.

Disinformation

As readers of BRT already know, George Orwell is a hero of yours truly. Brilliant, perceptive and above all else, a writer of the highest order, Orwell has been a profound influence relating to all things political and to the written word for this writer for over 40 years. In this day of disinformation, Orwell's concise and in-depth analysis of the machinations of government ring true, something a terrific piece from Alt-Market expands upon titled Disinformation: How It Works.

In modern times, and with carefully engineered methods, this goal has for the most part been accomplished. However, these methods also have inherent weaknesses. Lies are fragile. They require constant attentiveness to keep them alive. The exposure of a single truth can rip through an ocean of lies, evaporating it instantly.

The mainstream media, once tasked with the job of investigating government corruption and keeping elitists in line, has now become nothing more than a public relations firm for corrupt officials and their Globalist handlers. The days of the legitimate “investigative reporter” are long gone (if they ever existed at all), and journalism itself has deteriorated into a rancid pool of so called “TV Editorialists” who treat their own baseless opinions as supported fact.

Lie Big, Retract Quietly: Mainstream media sources (especially newspapers) are notorious for reporting flagrantly dishonest and unsupported news stories on the front page, then quietly retracting those stories on the very back page when they are caught. In this case, the point is to railroad the lie into the collective consciousness. Once the lie is finally exposed, it is already too late, and a large portion of the population will not notice or care when the truth comes out.

TV pundits are often trained in what are commonly called “Alinsky Tactics.” Saul Alinsky was a moral relativist, and champion of the lie as a tool for the “greater good”; essentially, a modern day Machiavelli. His “Rules for Radicals” were supposedly meant for grassroots activists who opposed the establishment and emphasized the use of any means necessary to defeat one’s political opposition. But is it truly possible to defeat an establishment built on lies, by use of even more elaborate lies, and by sacrificing one’s ethics? In reality, his strategies are the perfect format for corrupt institutions and governments to dissuade dissent from the masses. Today, Alinsky’s rules are used more often by the establishment than by its opposition.

Alinsky’s Strategy: Win At Any Cost, Even If You Have To Lie

Ministry of Truth anyone?

Addendum: Check out Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, something Orwell would have related to without question.  

Saul Alinsky

We had Paris - Rick Blane/Casablanca

Rick and Ilsa would have loved this video showing why Paris looks like Paris. Big data combined with rich graphics rocks. 

Hackpack

// HACKPACT // Gráfica Sonora from realitat on Vimeo.

Love eye candy like this. Awesome tech, great vibes. Enjoy

Curiosity has landed!

This is one of the first images taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars on the morning of Aug. 6, 2012. It was taken through a fisheye...

Awesome!

Think

Just downloaded a cool app for iPad. IBM's Think App. What's cool about this is 1, it's free and two, it also runs on Android. Get it and learn about tech, innovation and history in interactive fashion.
Works for me. :)

Resurrection

This picture from the NYTimes looks like a war zone but isn't. Rather, it's the start point for resurrecting a river by blowing up dams, a tech that destroys rivers as seen in a 2008 BRT post titled 

The Last Flight of The Scarlet Macaw, a piece showing how dams negatively impact the environment, something Bruce Barcott's book of the same name eloquently explains without reservation. 

The Elwha River drains out from Olympic National Park, a pristine place in the world. And as recently as a year ago, the river looked the part: it babbled its final miles in water clear enough to see the bottom. Now it runs thick with grainy sediment the color of chocolate milk.

But believe it or not, that is a good thing, or at least the roundabout result of one.


But even as the river has turned cloudy going down, at least a few fish have found a way back up.

The first dozen or so wild steelhead — their spawning run blocked for a century by the now-demolished Elwha Dam — were spotted last month upriver from the dam site, four months after its final concrete pieces were hauled away.

“With the dams down, fish are going to move, and these fish proved it,” said Brian D. Winter, the Elwha project manager for Olympic National Park.

When looking at this, the cautionary tale of creating powerful tech and the possibility of blowback using said tech on any given endeavor always comes to mind whether it be damming up rivers, creating GMO products or fracking for oil as everything comes at a cost. The question to ask is, do the benefits outweigh the costs? In the case of damns, we already know. In the case of GMO products and fracking, the answer's becoming increasingly clear.

It's evident the impact technology's having on the world is increasing at exponential rates. In every part of the planet, man is modifying nature with results beginning to become catastrophic regarding environment degradation, global warming and resource depletion, conditions yours truly believes every pre Type 1 civilization, we're pre Type 1, goes through when trying to advance to Type 1, let alone Type 2. From this perspective, it's logical to assume not all civilizations make it, something to consider when looking at what we are doing to earth using technologies whose eventual costs greatly outweigh short term gains as we move further into the 21st century.