Look Ma I Wrote Something

Bahamas!

natevoodoo — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:20:52 GMT

I got a marine technician internship in the bahamas. Yes it's going to be hot in August. No I don't care yet. Bahamas! I can't stop saying it! I'll be using this blog: http://ncgallagher.blogspot.com

Interesting Game

natevoodoo — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 02:03:27 GMT

If you are playing this game: Send the word "tribe" to the appropriate email list.

Because Vomit in the Hallway sucks...

natevoodoo — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 23:36:35 GMT

The freedom of a few individuals to be irresponsible steal the freedom of the majority of tenants to live in a relatively clean, presentable home. If you throw a party, know that you are also responsible for your guests. You and your guests have certain limits in terms of alcohol you can safely consume per hour and the number of bathrooms available for properly disposing human waste. So don't have more guests over than can reasonable share your one bathroom. That way they won't feel the need to barf in random public locations or urinate off the balcony onto the street below. This maximum guest number decreses with the speed of inebriation. Drinking slower = more friends having non-sick fun for longer. It is possible to party responsibly without damaging the enjoyment of others. Sharing public space is good karma. The more you do it, the more others will too, the less your apartment will smell like a dumpster. Thanks for reading!

Baby Panda!!!

natevoodoo — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 06:49:50 GMT

Some Observations on My Perception

natevoodoo — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 00:59:44 GMT

My small window into the world starts in my sensory organs, is filtered and interpreted by my brain, and excreted here on the page/screen with little similarity to the input that preceded it. In essence, my perception is a complete failure to the complete truth. But it does get me by with a little help from others. I will attempt to sum up the relative contributions of my genetics, the culture around me, and the natural environment that has given me my personal spin on the globe we live in. To interact and sense the physical world I need a body. And this body, by the best scientific evidence, was genetically improved in a competitive environment to do just that. The color spectrum that I paint and understand with starts in eyes that come from a primate lineage. Eyes that needed to tell the difference between ripe, unripe, and poisonous fruits and leaves of an omnivorous diet. Eyes that did not need to see the ultraviolet indicators of certain flowers to pollinating bees. Eyes that were dependent on skin that could sense hot and cold, so that infrared waves did not need to be seen to sense dangers to my homeostasis. A tongue that could taste decaying or poisoned food, before it is digested, when the color spectrum failed to provide enough information. Sounds and smell indicate the danger of predators or the location of small prey. And the animal ancestors that evolved sense for these first are the ones who spread their genetics on to me. This evolutionary algorithm clunked away in biological form for millennia with no need to understand, interpret, or define it. It’s clear from the computer in front of me that culture, and its companion technology, has moved very far away from that natural garden of creation. But competition still exists and has increased greatly in the form of ideas. From personal observations shared, its clear that the impact of culture on thinking and perception is far, far greater than genetics. The person I was 5 years ago differs greatly from who I am today. Fads have shorter and shorter lifetimes. The ideas of modern physics allow us to doubt what our eyes are telling us. The sun does not set apparently, the earth is just turning away. Few of us will make it out into outer space anytime soon to prove it to our senses, and yet this powerful idea persists in writing, pictures, and conversations. One of the biggest reasons for this spread of ideas is imitation. Like the great apes, we have a powerful faculty for imitation. But ours extends to symbolic language and has resulted in a complex writing system that stores these ideas with much better fidelity than our brains. As they are imitated, some ideas are easier to remember than others or more useful, and are therefore imitated more often. This competition of ideas lead to a comparison with genes by Richard Dawkins in the 1960s; calling the replicating ideas memes. This brings us back full circle to genetic's impact on our perception. Because while culture now has a greater impact on perception than genetics, the way in which that culture changes and evolves matches genes very closely. One can easily say that culture evolved from genetics and that it continues to be influenced by our evolving genetic structure in response to a changing natural and cultural environment. Libet's neuroscience experiments have shown that the perception of the self and its free decisions originates in a separately wired part of the brain than our motor skills. What’s more it is activated after the motor skills, meaning that a subconscious decision to move is made, we perceive we are making the decision consciously, then we move; in that order. An illusory free will is created for us to experience. This idea of the self resides both genetically in a special part of the brain (insula) and culturally in a collection of self-affirming memes. The basis of this may be an evolutionary advantage to work and compete in groups, and perhaps because sensing our lack of free will slowed the exchange of both memes and genes and was therefore selected against. Whatever the case, I at least know I’m alive and I can sense the world and that is a wonderful thing. Libet's Experiments: http://amor.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0998dgh/philom/consc/consc.html Susan Blackmore discussing significance of memes to the self: http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NSmeme%201999.htm

Kurzweil's 21st Century Timeline

natevoodoo — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 01:33:32 GMT

Just how soon will we get AI? Ray Kurzweil is considered one of the top inventor's on the planet. Omni-font optical character recognition machine Print-to-speech reading machine for the blind Text-to-speech synthesizer Synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano Large-vocabulary speech recognition Bill Gates has described Kurzweil as in a class by himself as regards to accurately predicting the trends and pace of technological development. www.KurzweilAI.net 2009: A $1,000 personal computer can perform about a trillion calculations per second. Personal computers with high-resolution visual displays come in a range of sizes, from those small enough to be embedded in clothing and jewelry up to the size of a thin book. Cables are disappearing. Communication between components uses short-distance wireless technology. High-speed wireless communication provides access to the Web. The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition. Also ubiquitous are language user interfaces (LUIs). Most routine business transactions (purchases, travel, reservations) take place between a human and a virtual personality. Often, the virtual personality includes an animated visual presence that looks like a human face. Although traditional classroom organization is still common, intelligent courseware has emerged as a common means of learning. Pocket-sized reading machines for the blind and visually impaired, "listening machines" (speech-to-text conversion) for the deaf, and computer- controlled orthotic devices for paraplegic individuals result in a growing perception that primary disabilities do not necessarily impart handicaps. Translating telephones (speech-to-speech language translation) are commonly used for many language pairs. Accelerating returns from the advance of computer technology have resulted in continued economic expansion. Price deflation, which had been a reality in the computer field during the twentieth century, is now occurring outside the computer field. The reason for this is that virtually all economic sectors are deeply affected by the accelerating improvement in the price performance of computing. Human musicians routinely jam with cybernetic musicians. Bioengineered treatments for cancer and heart disease have greatly reduced the mortality from these diseases. The neo-Luddite movement is growing. 2019: A $1,000 computing device (in 1999 dollars) is now approximately equal to the computational ability of the human brain. Computers are now largely invisible and are embedded everywhere-in walls, tables, chairs, desks, clothing, jewelry, and bodies. Three-dimensional virtual reality displays, embedded in glasses and contact lenses, as well as auditory "lenses," are used routinely as primary interfaces for communication with other persons, computers, the Web, and virtual reality. Most interaction with computing is through gestures and two-way natural-language spoken communication. Nanoengineered machines are beginning to be applied to manufacturing and process-control applications. High-resolution, three-dimensional visual and auditory virtual reality and realistic all-encompassing tactile environments enable people to do virtually anything with anybody, regardless of physical proximity. Paper books or documents are rarely used and most learning is conducted through intelligent, simulated software-based teachers. Blind persons routinely use eyeglass-mounted reading-navigation systems. Deaf persons read what other people are saying through their lens displays. Paraplegic and some quadriplegic persons routinely walk and climb stairs through a combination of computer-controlled nerve stimulation and exoskeletal robotic devices. The vast majority of transactions include a simulated person. Automated driving systems are now installed in most roads. People are beginning to have relationships with automated personalities and use them as companions, teachers, caretakers, and lovers. Virtual artists, with their own reputations, are emerging in all of the arts. There are widespread reports of computers passing the Turing Test, although these tests do not meet the criteria established by knowledgeable observers. 2029: A $1,000 (in 1999 dollars) unit of computation has the computing capacity of approximately 1,000 human brains. Permanent or removable implants (similar to contact lenses) for the eyes as well as cochlear implants are now used to provide input and output between the human user and the worldwide computing network. Direct neural pathways have been perfected for high-bandwidth connection to the human brain. A range of neural implants is becoming available to enhance visual and auditory perception and interpretation, memory, and reasoning. Automated agents are now learning on their own, and significant knowledge is being created by machines with little or no human intervention. Computers have read all available human- and machine-generated literature and multimedia material. There is widespread use of all-encompassing visual, auditory, and tactile communication using direct neural connections, allowing virtual reality to take place without having to be in a "total touch enclosure." The majority of communication does not involve a human. There is almost no human employment in production, agriculture, or transportation. Basic life needs are available for the vast majority of the human race. There is a growing discussion about the legal rights of computers and what constitutes being "human." Although computers routinely pass apparently valid forms of the Turing Test, controversy persists about whether or not machine intelligence equals human intelligence in all of its diversity. Machines claim to be conscious. These claims are largely accepted. 2049: The common use of nanoproduced food, which has the correct nutritional composition and the same taste and texture of organically produced food, means that the availability of food is no longer affected by limited resources, bad crop weather, or spoilage. Nanobot swarm projections are used to create visual-auditory-tactile projections of people and objects in real reality. 2072: Picoengineering (developing technology at the scale of picometers or trillionths of a meter = size of 10 protons) becomes practical. By the year 2099: There is a strong trend toward a merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created. There is no longer any clear distinction between humans and computers. Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence. Machine-based intelligences derived from extended models of human intelligence claim to be human, although their brains are not based on carbon-based cellular processes, but rather electronic and photonic equivalents. Most of these intelligences are not tied to a specific computational processing unit. The number of software-based humans vastly exceeds those still using native neuron-cell-based computation. Even among those human intelligences still using carbon-based neurons, there is ubiquitous use of neural-implant technology, which provides enormous augmentation of human perceptual and cognitive abilities. Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to meaningfully participate in dialogues with those who do. Because most information is published using standard assimilated knowledge protocols, information can be instantly understood. The goal of education, and of intelligent beings, is discovering new knowledge to learn. Femtoengineering (engineering at the scale of femtometers or one thousandth of a trillionth of a meter = engineering new subatomic particles the size of quarks) proposals are controversial. Life expectancy is no longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings.

The ________ is yet to come.

natevoodoo — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:19:31 GMT

It's Turducken Season 1of5

natevoodoo — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:49:09 GMT

What the Fuck is Turducken? Sometimes called a Chuckey. Turducken is a dish that is made by cramming a boneless chicken into a boneless duck, which is stuffed into a boneless turkey. Three kinds of stuffing are layered between the three kinds of meat and the monstrosity is cooked for a very long time. The end result, when cut, is a fantastic food rainbow that must be eaten to be believed. Not to be confused with other animal name combos that are genetic in nature such as the Liger or Tigon. At Hebert's Specialty Meats in Maurice, Louisiana, owners Junior and Sammy Hebert claim to have started making the dish in 1985 when a local man brought his own birds to their shop and asked the brothers to create the medley. Since then, it has become something of a national fad. Hebert's alone sells 3,000 turduckens between Thanksgiving and Christmas—for $55 a pop. NFL sportscaster John Madden is known for popularizing the turducken. As he explained in the New York Times, "The first one I ever had I was doing a game in New Orleans. The P.R. guy for the Saints brought me one. And he brought it to the booth. It smelled and looked so good. I didn't have any plates or silverware or anything, and I just started eating it with my hands." So smitten was Madden with the Cajun delicacy, he regularly eats one during the Thanksgiving Day game broadcast. [Note: Above copy cobbled together from great sites below] National Geographic Slideshow of Turducken Preparation at Herbert's Specialty Meats in Maurice, LA www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/....html Hebert's Specialty Meats www.hebertsmeats.com Order the turducken online and all the other stuffed items they sell. Black Table www.blacktable.com/turducken031217.htm Amusing story and descriptions of how to fix the popular turducken. Chef Paul Prudhomme www.chefpaul.com/turducken.html Cajun recipe with his own special seasonings.

Cooked Slice 2of5

natevoodoo — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:43:09 GMT

Closeup 3of5

natevoodoo — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:42:35 GMT

Assembly 4of5

natevoodoo — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:41:56 GMT

Raw Birds 5of5

natevoodoo — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:41:29 GMT

Robotic Fish

natevoodoo — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 02:52:16 GMT

The London Aquarium is showing a very realistic moving, self-navigating robotic fish; leading many kids on field trip to say: "Brilliant!" "Wicked!" "Massive!" A.I. is theoretically going to evolve in the same manner as parts of the human brain have done. Fish-->Amphibian-->Lizard-->Bird-->Mammal-->Primate Well at least, that's the road map that's been laid out for us to follow. Videos here: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~jliua/videogal.htm

In Utah This Week

natevoodoo — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:14:47 GMT

The Local Rag posted a story today on a new Documentary chronically a "scientific" reconstruction of the journey of Jews ca. 600 BC to the North American continent in football-shaped, wooden submarines as told in the Book of Mormon. http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=62157&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 The Book of Mormon, of course, claims to be a translation by Joseph Smith of ancient heiroglyphic-esque (sic) writings of Native Americans. According to this book, these Jews, who travelled to North America, intermarried-with the locals and became Native Americans, possibly the Mayans. There is a concerted financial effort by Brigham Young University (BYU) and the LDS church to research archeology to find evidence for their faith. Especially since recent DNA technology completely disproves any genetic connection between Native Americans and the Middle East. I'm fascinated by the journeys humans put themselves through in search of truth and their faith. Pilgrimages like this having been happening since before recorded history. Mecca, the yogi on the mountain, etc. I think we should all be able to identify with this search, whether we agree with the particulars of another faith. There's quite a dichotomy here (as opposed to diversity) of Believers (Molly Mormons) and Haters (Jack Mormons). Like most dichotomies, this one is pointless and lacks any empathy or understanding on either side. What follows is my editorial reply posted to their website: The DNA evidence alone makes the BofM as fact impossible, in my opinion at least. But there will never be enough evidence to totally disprove it for the faithful. Popular Literature during Joseph Smith's time was fascinated with archaeology due to recent findings in Egypt. The subject matter found in Smith's "translations" are nothing but a reflection of the fads and popular memes of his time. Just like the Catholic church is still mired in Gothic Medieval myths. But there's really nothing wrong with that. Ultimate truth is not possible to know with the human mind. Faith and belief are mankind's only connection with the Unknowable Truth--or what can only be called "God." And without that link we live incomplete lives. Judging the particular faith in others is judging the basic human condition. Sometimes I wonder whether my faith in science has more to do with its modern appeal, than its truth. How many concepts have I actually tested in a lab, and how many do I take on faith based on the writings of scientific prophet? The LDS church is just facing the natural struggle with modern ideas and faiths. Just like older religions or faiths. There's nothing bad about the LDS church that can't also be said about other Prodestant churches. I find myself more likely to object to Pat Robertson on the 700 club than anything said on BYUTV. I am fascinated with faith and the human search for truth. I can't wait to see this documentary. And I totally respect those who made it.