March 18, 2008
Introducing: My Technomadism Hacks
I haven't been posting much, but I have been researching, developing, rapid prototyping, and hacking. I'm applying my love of desert camping, travel, wearable technology, and embedded computing to my urban flagship; a duosport motorcycle. Here's a first look:
solar-nav-storage:
This photo shows items I transformed into a top case and a tank bag.
While commuting, the top case can hold gear from errands. While touring, it can carry as much gas a my tank holds plus water. I can remove it anytime. This allows off-roading without extra fuel sloshing around in an enlarged tank. It is made from an LP case, and stability tests will determine if it's indeed more versatile than a top case and replacement gas tank; easily at a savings of at least $200.
The tank bag is made from a folding map case, magnets, and wiring. It's appropriate that it holds my phone with GPS, a non-networked highway infrastructure computer, compass and pencil pack, map, and a solar battery charger for my bike and auuxilliary device battery. I'm sure it'll still also hold an actual paper map or two. I can't find many tank bags with top map pockets that will fit my sloped gas tank. So, I made a form-fitting one that mostly multplies the functionality of the feature I wanted most anyway; a large map pocket.
March 01, 2008
Wearable Computing on BBTV on CNN
CNN has broadcast a segment on Boing Boing TV, which shows a clip from my segment as it mentions "a demonstration of wearable computers" as a primary example of BBTV content. Online video-on-demand can be viewed here. BBTV uses a still from the segment, shown above, to represent it on their BBTV In The News page and here too. This still is also an except from their segment about my wearable computing work. I am honored and it has got me thinking...
January 06, 2008
Programming DNA
Drew Endy presents on MIT's genetic reverse-engineering, developing a human-readable, high-level programming language, and leading a worldwide academic effort to develop open-source bio-objects. He proposes reprogramming bacterial DNA as one form of nano-engineering. Video documentation, found here, also covers a brief history of genetic decoding in terms of Accelerating Returns, safety protocols, and a speculative future of bio-hacking communities.
link via Hackaday
December 13, 2007
November 30, 2007
An Info-Gargoyle Meta-Moment
Although our name was inspired by Snow Crash, in Neuromancer, "The Panther Modern leader, who introduced himself as Lupus Yonderboy, wore a polycarbon suit with a recording feature that allowed him to replay backgrounds at will. Perched on the edge of Case's worktable like some sort of state of the art gargoyle", I also found read about his Mimetic Polycarbon Suit here while searching around for artists' concepts of him.
Technovelgy.com describes the its namesake as: "Creative ideas and inventions of science fiction writers". This definition was enough to make me think about my concept of 'invention'. The first link also provides a link to one of many projects working on wearable chameleon technology.
October 17, 2007
Beyond Cyberpunk
"When we began Beyond Cyberpunk! (BCP), there was no such thing as the World Wide Web. Hypermedia programs like Apple's HyperCard were the only way to inexpensively deliver hypertext with linked sounds, images, and animation... The result was a 5.5 megabyte "connect-the-dots" cyber-manifesto. In 1993, we followed up the first BCP stack with a one-disk update."
[Link via Gareth's Vanity Portal]
July 20, 2006
William Gibson’s Idoru Coming to Anime
William Gibson's book, Idoru is coming to anime, according to "Now Playing Magazine". I haven't personally read the book, but I would love to see more cyberpunk on the screen again.
“The studio people that were reading the script all loved it,” Steyermark says. “They said, ‘This is a $150 million movie.’ One of them came back and said, ‘How would you feel about doing this as an anime film?’ I thought that is really cool, really creative. It’s exciting, it’s a great way to do it on a smaller budget. At the same time, [it] could set up a live action version of it.”
They said it could have started in development as early as this May. I hope this is true. It's about time more of these great novels made it to the digital screen.
[ Link via the cyberpunk tribe ]
June 24, 2006
Sealand Devastated by Fire
The totally cyberpunk country called Sealand, which housed the ultra cool data haven called HavenCo caught on fire yesterday. The country, which is based on an anti aircraft tower of the Essex coast of Great Brittian has come under attack on several occasions by people who wanted to lay claim to the tiny country.
“There have been a number of explosions on board as the fire has engulfed gas bottles and batteries. Only one person was on Sealand at the time, whom we understand to be a watchman whose job was to maintain the generators and equipment.“A team of firefighters was flown to the scene but because of the damage to the structure they decided not to go on board.
“A firefighting tug sprayed the whole structure with water in the hope this would eventually cool the fire and starve it of oxygen.”
A spokesperson for Suffolk Fire Service confirmed the fire was left to burn itself out and was under control by 3.10pm.
Michael Bates of Sealand's royal family vows to rebuild. Good for him, Sealand has been around for a long time, and it would be a shame to see it disapear as it's one of the more successful "Start your own country" projects.
[ Link to original story. Link to followup story. Map of where Sealand is located. Via boingboing. ]
May 15, 2006
February 02, 2006
The Raft: Snow Crash
In the book, Snow Crash, Neil Stephenson describes this mile wide floating city made up of boats tied together around a giant aircraft carrier. The city would move around the world, and refugees would attach and detach themselves from the mass. This above picture is one artist's concept of the raft.
The concept is a massive raft city comprised of lashed together boats, ships, tankers, junks and whatnot. It isn't fully realized, but i liked the color and the lighting n this one. Enjoy.
I've always loved the concept of a floating city made up of nomads and technomads alike. This illustration is great, but it doesn't quite hit home for me. Someone else had this comment:
The color and lighting ARE great. It really does conjure up Stephenson's wonderful descriptions. My only critcism is that it doesn't feel quite as dirty and claustrophobic as his writing suggests; the scene seems a bit too ideal and saccharin. Good stuff :)
Even as I google this now, I can't find many results for the raft. There is Freedom Ship, an attempt to make a floating city in the form of a giant cruise ship, but nothing as chaotic as Stevenson describes in his novel. I once hosted a site that talked more about this idea at http://mind.blazingfast.net/TheRaft, but it seems that google nor the wayback machine are able to help me reclaim that page.
If you haven't read Snow Crash already, I really recommend it. You can find the descriptions of the raft on pages 118, 370, 387, 404. If you're interested in the concept of the raft, you probably should also check out this wiki page on the topic of floating cities. They even have a mailing list at floating-cities-request@sculptors.com.
[ Link ]
December 13, 2005
December 04, 2005
US Army Embraces Snow Crash Mind Control
The human body, much like a computer, contains myriad data processors. They include, but are not limited to, the chemical-electrical activity of the brain, heart, and peripheral nervous system, the signals sent from the cortex region of the brain to other parts of our body, the tiny hair cells in the inner ear that process auditory signals, and the light-sensitive retina and cornea of the eye that process visual activity. We are on the threshold of an era in which these data processors of the human body may be manipulated or debilitated.An entirely new arsenal of weapons, based on devices designed to introduce subliminal messages or to alter the body's psychological and data-processing capabilities, might be used to incapacitate individuals. These weapons aim to control or alter the psyche, or to attack the various sensory and data-processing systems of the human organism. In both cases, the goal is to confuse or destroy the signals that normally keep the body in equilibrium.
[ Link via the cyberpunk tribe ]
October 27, 2005
Cyberpunk Manifesto
Ah, to be a cyberpunk. Here's the cyberpunk manifesto by Christian As. Kirtchev.
1/ We are those, the Different. Technological rats, swimming in the ocean of information.2/ We are the retiring, little kid at school, sitting at the last desk, in the corner of the class room.
3/ We are the teenager everybody considers strange
4/ We are the student hacking computer systems, exploring the depth of his reach.
5/ We are the grown-up in the park, sitting on a bench, laptop on his knees, programming the last virtual reality.
6/ Ours is the garage, stuffed with electronics. The soldering iron in the corner of the desk and the nearby disassembled radio- they are also ours. Ours is the cellar with computers, buzzing printers and beeping modems.
7/ We are those that see reality in a different way. Our point of view shows more than ordinary people can see. They see only what is outside, but we see what is inside. That's what we are - realists with the glasses of dreamers.
8/ We are those strange people, almost unknown to the neighborhood. People, indulged in their own thoughts, sitting day after day before the computer, ransacking the net for something. We are not often out of home, just from time to time, only to go to the nearby radio shack, or to the usual bar to meet some of the few friends we have, or to meet a client, or to the backstreet druggist... or just for a little walk.
9/ We do not have many friends, only a few with whom we go to parties. Everybody else we know we know on the net. Our real friends are there, on the other side of the line. We know them from our favorite IRC channel, from the News-Groups, from the systems we hang-around:
10/ We are those who don't give a shit about what people think about us, we don't care what we look like or what people talk about us in our absence.
11/ The majority of us likes to live in hiding, being unknown to everybody except those few we must inevitably contact with.
12/ Others love publicity, they love fame. They are all known in the underground world. Their names are often heard there.
But we are all united by one thing - we are Cyberpunks.
Also I found this list of cyberpunk fiction, which is the kind of thing I should get my friend and avid reader, dragoon, to add to.