Low-Tech Classified Ads

There is a growing awareness about two divergent paths our species could follow from this point in our bewildering milieu. The first presupposes that our technology will continue to advance exponentially toward beautiful (or perhaps terrifying) outcomes and horizons of possibility. The second shivers with the fear of a planet-wide collapse of society and technology, spiraling us into a new “dark age” of low technology and primitive social structures.

I follow Klint Finley’s blog, Technoccult, and appreciate his insight and attention to unfolding trends in technology and society. He recently began a thread with this question: “In a low-tech, post-apocalyptic world, what would you want your job to be?” I still haven’t found an answer to this question, but it began ticking at the back of my brain.

This question spiked to the forefront of my mind again yesterday, after receiving an email from my dear friend Carolyn, about low-tech booby traps setup alongside popular hiking trails in Utah. The article got me to thinking about another angle on Finley’s question; and made me pose my own: What if persons already committed to a low-technology future are already placing bids on their jobs in the post-apocalyptic world?

Our entire culture, at this very moment, is white knuckling the steering wheel into a tunnel with no light at the other end. Our collective future is shadowed by Fukushima, increasing tension and violence between “law” enforcement and citizens worldwide, and a persistent fear-based media that aims to unhinge citizens young and old and create divisive reefs between people who have more in common with each other than the governments who represent their interests (and I use that word loosely).

I’ll admit I’m not ignorant, or without consideration, of a possible low-tech society in our immediate future. During a conversation with a friend on his birthday last week, the notion of a “ten-year” plan popped up. He has two kids, seven and five-years-old, so for him, there is a stronger notion of a necessity to plan for the future. I’m single and have no children, but the concept hit me pretty hard. What will the world look like in ten years? What do I want my role in whatever world unfolds in ten years to be? How do I start placing my bid on that role now?

Tying rocks and spiked stakes to ropes in trees is definitely not the best answer. Neither is arguing moot political blunderings until we’re all blue in the face or parading in the streets alongside violence tourists. The only answer I’ve discovered to this point, is the same notion I’ve tried to build my life on for the past ten years: learn to be a boundless being in this culture which tries, with all its might, to incarcerate you, whether it be in a job, a house, or a tailor-made personality marketed on the web or television. It is up to you to decide your own role in the post-apocalyptic, zombified world, which is already upon us.

Diagnosis -- FREE Reaktor Ensemble!

I spent a few hours fooling around in Reaktor today and built this slick little wide-pan stereo modular synth. It has 2 oscillators, a multi-pass filter, and several modulation generators. Requires 5.6.2 update to work properly. Have fun!

Click to download.

Project Glass: Another step toward embracing the Godgle

            It isn’t exactly cutting edge news as the announcement managed to hit most media and press releases in early April of this year, but I think in keeping with my supporting the super-intelligence candidacy for Godgle, the Google Project Glass prototype deserves another look.

            I mentioned the science fiction author, Vernor Vinge, in a recent post and would like to visit a concept from his 1999 novel A Deepness in the Sky. The milieu for A Deepness is perhaps within a thousand years in an alternate dimension or universe to our own, as the technology is slightly advanced, but in many ways very similar. Without delving into a dissection of this fabulous novel and its plot (which I highly recommend!), I’d like to focus on one particular piece of technology Vinge envisions. In his book, Vinge refers to them as head up displays or HUDs. They are, by no stretch of the imagination, the exact same technology as Google’s Project Glass: glasses or goggles, which allow interaction with both local and wide-area networks through voice command and eye-tracking.

            Google unveiled this project to subtle fanfare. When we perceive how Bluetooth headpieces brought us fully into the futuristic musings of Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek transcoders, we can also see how this new project undertaken by Google will bring us into a whole new way of encountering and interacting with the datasphere. This is big-time stuff. This is going to make the iPhone, the iPad, and all other tablet and touch technologies look like the cave man who kept pushing rocks up a hill after another guy discovered the wheel.
             While the eye-tracking implementation may not have found incorporation into the design yet, I can assure you the technology exists and will find its way into the design shortly. Further attention and development with EEG and BCIs will allow technologies like Project Glass to take us directly into the virtual or augmented reality we are all collectively building on the web.

            Sergey Brin of Google appeared recently on the Gavin Newsom Show to demonstrate the technology. While we don’t get to see the user’s perspective, the brief interaction with this profound piece of R&D boasts a staggering future of computing possibilities.

            After seeing these specs in action, I can only stand out in the crowd waving my arms wildly in the air, yelling “Hire me to Google X Lab! I want to help design and conceptualize this kind of stuff, too!!”

The Future is Noisy: Where's my Filter Algorithm?

A few weeks ago, I underwent a special EEG test called a visual evoked potential (VEP). This test is designed to measure irregularities in cortical processing of visual stimuli. It is often used to help evaluate whether multiple sclerosis (MS) is a suspected diagnosis for abnormal visual and neurological symptoms. A cluster of EEG nodes are attached to precise locations on the back of the skull to measure the transference speed of voltages traveling from the occipital cortex while the subject’s vision is stimulated by the shifting inversion of a graphic pattern.

As I sat there staring at an old CRT monitor with a checkerboard pattern that center-terminated in a single red dot, I ruminated on the data filtering process of the technology that was about to measure my brain waves on the nano-volt level. I began wondering what capacities it might possess if the noise filtration were tuned to track the subtlest variations of thought, emotion, and sense. With ever increasing data filtration sets, we could soon use our brains to control a vast number of interactive and emotive technologies. Our emerging technologies, while vast and increasingly impressive, are lacking in creativity of application and humanity of scope. Once we can overcome hurdles of isolated focus, I expect that the data sets and filtration algorithms will advance at a dizzying pace.

I was reminded of that experience while reading through Twitter, Facebook, and blog feeds over coffee yesterday morning when I came across an article about the new ZeroN levitating interaction element on the Blind Giant blog of author Nick Harkaway. Harkaway makes an interesting statement about the direction of emergent technology and how “data is simply the world around us represented by a machine.” It strikes me, that all these interactive and wave-analysis technologies, once properly attenuated to the task, will give us an even broader understanding of data. Perhaps even a better understanding of what being “human” means.

Once I get rattling down this cyber-existential railroad, I cannot help but think of Heiddeger’s essay “The Question Concerning Technology.” Every time I read this essay or attempt to teach it to students or share it with friends, I find myself plagued with thoughts that paint technology as a kind of bacterial parasite that decided to infect lower reptilian and mammalian critters to birth humans; and beyond that, eventually birth machines. Machination, automation, and the trend towards a digital reality coup d’état of the analog, in this light, seems like some poetic manifestation nature had planned all along.

On that note, I will leave you with a quote by George Dyson, author of Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence, which incoherently leaves me both terrified and awe-filled at the prospects of the future: “In the game of life and evolution there are three players at the table: human beings, nature, and machines. I am firmly on the side of nature. But nature, I suspect, is on the side of the machines.”

The Technocore

Last week, a good friend of mine began a discussion on his Facebook page about how the human drive toward god-like omniscience and omnipresence is manifesting in the shape of technologies such as Google. The thread jokingly referred to the megalithic search engine and enterprising empire as “The Godgle.”

Over a year ago, I coined the term Godgle to many friends as a sort of humorous jab at the nebulous portal through which all information seems to flow. I am quite positive I was not the first to graft God to Google, nor was I first to have an inkling that the mega-company had indeed birthed something completely alien and, in some regards, deific.

I make no secret of the fact that I am a science fiction nerd and avid futurist. I fell in love with Ray Bradbury’s work as a child and spent the last thirty years consuming everything from Frank Herbet to Stanislaw Lem like an obese child eats cake with a glint of greed in his eyes. The transcendent computer demiurges hinted at in the works of Dan Simmons and Vernor Vinge, now seem more like prophetic utterances of the coming of Google than fantastic universes of speculative fiction; and with this month’s passing of California Senate Bill 1298, the Godgle takes one more step toward immortality by introducing “autonomous” vehicles completely at the mercy of algorithims, sensors, and computers.  

For the sake of imagination and argument, let’s suppose that author and futurist Ray Kurzweil’s vision of the future indeed comes to pass and a “singularity” will erupt at the point where exponential acceleration of information and technology tumble over each other to birth a super-intelligence. Godgle has the human resources necessary to burn midnight oil on the task: money, masterminds, and manipulators. It has the established framework: a global network of servers, users, and programmers. Last but not least, it has the undying attention of a global population thirsty for information based on an ever-expanding toolset, foresight, and opportunism.

Based on the available data and information at present, I hereby elect Godgle as most likely candidate for ascension to super-intelligence. Cast your vote!

Recent article on Percussa blog

Percussa, the creators of AudioCubes, featured my article for using their Improvisor software with iZotope's Stutter Edit to create unique glitching effects in your productions.

You can find the article here: Feral Glitch: Using Percussa's Improvisor with iZotope's Stutter Edit