My Thoughts Exactly:
More good news from the Precog Engineering Team

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Via my friend Mike who sent me a link to Kurzwell AI, this story in the Guardian about research at the Max Plank Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. A new brain scan enables the reading of thoughts and intentions; can predict what a person will say or do next. Some goody-two-shoes expressed concern (see below)–but fear not! Such retrograde badthink bioluddites will be squashed like bugs as the glorious Singularity/Technopoly arises!

Because brains differ so much, the scientists need a good idea of what a person’s brain activity looks like when they are thinking something to be able to spot it in a scan, but researchers are already devising ways of deducing what patterns are associated with different thoughts.

Barbara Sahakian, a professor of neuro-psychology at Cambridge University, said the rapid advances in neuroscience had forced scientists in the field to set up their own neuroethics society late last year to consider the ramifications of their research.

“Do we want to become a ‘Minority Report’ society where we’re preventing crimes that might not happen?,” she asked. “For some of these techniques, it’s just a matter of time. It is just another new technology that society has to come to terms with and use for the good, but we should discuss and debate it now because what we don’t want is for it to leak into use in court willy nilly without people having thought about the consequences.

”A lot of neuroscientists in the field are very cautious and say we can’t talk about reading individuals’ minds, and right now that is very true, but we’re moving ahead so rapidly, it’s not going to be that long before we will be able to tell whether someone’s making up a story, or whether someone intended to do a crime with a certain degree of certainty.“

Professor Colin Blakemore, a neuroscientist and director of the Medical Research Council, said: ”We shouldn’t go overboard about the power of these techniques at the moment, but what you can be absolutely sure of is that these will continue to roll out and we will have more and more ability to probe people’s intentions, minds, background thoughts, hopes and emotions.

Monty Meekman, a spokesman for the Overmind entity known by its acronym ORSON (Obedient Remote Servo-Organic Network), was reportedly pleased. A presss release from his office contained the single word, “Excellent!”

My Thoughts Exactly:
Imus bye-bye

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So Imus is cooked, apparently. Good riddance. (My letter to the stations in favor of canning him appears below the fold.) Major advertisers have bailed, and now MSNBC has pulled the plug on the TV “simulcast” of his radio show. I would expect that given the nature of the uproar, CBS will throw in the towel by Friday and announce the cancellation of his radio show as well. I hope they do, in any event. Even if they don’t, Imus’s influence will be greatly muted henceforward, as the pressure will be on his guests, and many of them will decide that an appearance on his show isn’t worth the crap that will go with it.

Some people have come to Imus’s defense with either personal or pragmatic arguments. Others have attempted to change the topic with Chewbacca gambits. I give my reactions to these below the fold also.

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
My Impossibly Long Field Guide for the 700 MHz Auction (It's Really Important, Even If You Haven't Heard About It Much In The Main Stream Media)

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Few events in the wireless world matter so much, yet get so little coverage, as the upcomming 700 MHz wireless auction. Why? Because they’re hard, and the mainstream media (MSM to us “bloggers”) are afraid you will get all confuzzled and bored. Besides, isn’t non-stop coverage of Anna Nichole Smith more satisfying? (Hint: She’s still dead.)

Small wonder that even if you are in the minority of folks who have heard about the “digital television transition” and the “return of the analog spectrum,” you have not heard about the huge policy fights over how to auction off the single most important block of spectrum for the foreseeable future. Which is, of course, how the big carriers like it.

You can find a pretty good 12-page summary prepared by some investment analysts over here. But, being the highly-opinionated public advocate and believer in democracy that I am, I also provide a hopefully helpful guide for de-mystifying the swirl of players and activity attracted to the distribution of this multi-billion dollar block of spectrum licenses. Issues include network neutrality, open access, wireless competition, the future of broadband competition, and a whole lot of public safety stuff. It includes a cast of thousands from Frontline to Cyren Call to the Ad Hoc Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (I thought up the name myself! O.K., I was in a rush . . . .) and an army of incumbents that like the universe just the way it is, thank you and do not look kindly on those of us trying to shake things up.

I warn you, this is extremely long (13 pages, I probably should have broken it up into more than one post), and complicated, and all that stuff that mainstream media figures your pretty lil’ heads can’t handle without getting all confuzzled. So, if ye be readers of courage, willing to risk getting all confuzzled and thinking about how our wireless and broadband future will unflold for the next 10-15 years, read on! Or you can go back to Google News and plug in “Anna Nichole Smith” (yup, still dead).

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My Thoughts Exactly:
Oberlin College, Hamilton College, Foothills Junior College, MIT, Clear Channel

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As they used to say on Sesame Street, one of those things is a little bit different; one of those things is not quite the same.

What Hamilton, Oberlin, Foothills and MIT have in common is that each of them has a nifty way-cool non-commercial radio station (WHCL, WOBC, KFJC, WMBR) that streams on the web. What Clear Channel has, on the other hand, is a bunch of really shitty commercial radio stations that play over the air (I suppose Clear Channel stations may also be available on the web, but if they are, who cares? Who the hell would listen to them? The only reason to listen to commercial radio is if no broadband internet connection is available. Like, say, if you’re in a car. Or at Logan Airport. Stuck for 3 days in a freak blizzard. And World War Three has just broken out and you’re curious about what’s going on. And there is no NPR station because zombies have eaten all the NPR people.(1))

Clear Channel, in addition to owning a ton of billboards and crappy radio stations, also has an awful lot of political clout that it uses in ugly ways. KFJC, WHCL, WOBC and WMBR do not. So that’s another way that one of those things is a little bit different.

By the way, KFJC has been, for quite a while, the coolest radio station on the planet (& so immortalized in my famous novel Acts of the Apostles). WMBR (“the leftmost station on your radio dial”) has its distinct charms; I got hooked on it when I was staying in Somerville 4 days/week a few years ago. I like Bats in the Belfry, the goth music show, and French Toast, on Monday mornings, a French-language show that specializes in cheesey pop but sometimes might sneak in a little Plastic Bertrand. I listen to WHCL not only because I’m a sentimental alumnus, but also ’cause it’s cool. WOBC I found on the principle that small liberal arts colleges have good radio stations. Try it, you’ll see. (I mean, pick any random small liberal arts college and find their radio station. Chances are it will be better than any comercial or NPR station playing on your radio). I especially like WOBC’s bluegrass show. The DJ sounds as if he’s 100 years old, and he really knows his stuff. As I’m witing this, I’m listening to a hip-hop show WOBC. Don’t resist or you might miss Christmas. . .

ATTENTION MEDIA ACCESS PROJECT! HALP! HELP! HALP!

I’m still having a background-process nervous breakdown over the prospect of internet radio being eviscerated by some kind of whacky “copyrights board” that I don’t really understand, but blogged briefly about here. Harold Feld’s preliminary analysis was that the threat is real, and I heard a story on NPR last week that said the same thing. So pardon me while I panic and kind of melt down before right in front of you. If I understand things correctly, the IP Mafia is planning a big-time hit. After which internet radio will be more or less just like commerical over-the-air radio.

There’s still time to appeal the ruling (I think?), and I sure hope that the Media Access Project or Harold or somebody can give us a plan for how to stop this looming travesty. Between college radio stations and Pandora, I listen to internet radio about 50 hours each week. Only seldom, very seldom, do I hear stuff that gets played on NPR or commercial stations. Truly, internet radio is a wonderful, glorious thing. To destroy internet radio in the name of some bogus RIAA copyright horseshit would be vandalism on the scale of burning the library at Alexandria.

Anybody with any guidance about how to avert disaster, please speak up. Anybody whose name is Harold Feld of the Media Access Project who has any insight into how to mobilize to save internet radio, your advice is earnestly sought.

(1) And you don’t dare go near the TVs because the zombies are all watching CNN and FOX!

Inventing the Future:
rock shows then and Can You Hear Me Now?

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I went to my first rock concert in years last night. Wife and I took our oldest daughter to see Snow Patrol.

The base player for opening opener Silversun Pickups had an amp with a GREEN LIGHT on it instead of a RED one. What’s up with that? Kids these days…

Seriously, it wasn’t very different from years ago. OK Go (the middle band) had a a screen behind them with their music videos playing. The music was pretty much like early U2 with a maybe a little Iggy Pop thrown into the first two.

One thing that was kind of weird: no lighters in the air. There was enough cigarette smoking to make my hair stink, but not very much. No pot. Instead of lighters, people held up their cell phones!

Some of that was for taking pictures. It’s kind of interesting that where they used to ban recording devices (they may still do so, officially), there’s no freakin’ way that they can effectively stop that now. (The drummer for one of the bands actually whipped out a little camera to take pictures of his bandmates on stage taking their bows. From behind. Probably included a lot of the audience.) I wonder why they don’t have a live Web site on the screen to which the audience can upload their pictures while the show is in progress. More participatory and all…

Anyway, seeing all those cell phones being held up in the air was pretty weird. It was like some sort of bizarre Verizon ad.

It occurs to me that one of the reasons that we are all so accepting of government abuse is that we came of age going to concerts where we would be searched for alcohol (and recording devices), and then be served alcohol on the premises. There’s no flipping principle of safety or law at work there — it’s simply the exercise of commercial power. We accept it when it’s convenient enough to do so, and don’t accept it when it irks us enough. For example, we’re not going to throw away our cell phones during the entry search. And the “them” accept that, and only try to enforce the abuse of power that they can get away with. So as long as the government keeps the planes running without TOO much delay, and doesn’t send us personally to Iraq, we acquiesce.

My Thoughts Exactly:
Dr. Evil to create virtual people

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using government money:

EVL will build a state-of-the-art motion-capture studio to digitalize the image and movement of real people who will go on to live a virtual eternity in virtual reality. Knowledge will be archived into databases. Voices will be analyzed to create synthesized but natural-sounding “virtual” voices. Mannerisms will be studied and used in creating the 3-D virtual forms, known technically as avatars.

Leigh said his team hopes to create virtual people who respond with a high degree of recognition to different voices and the various ways questions are phrased.

Hope it does not cost ONE BILLION DOLLARS!

What’s that you say? Electronic Visualization Laboratory, EVL, not Dr. Evil, the archvillain?

Oh. Nevermind