h+ Magazine points to this great 3quarksdaily essay about Elvis as a transhumanist. I’ll buy that one. 20th century celebrity was basically a transhumanist strategy anyway, and Elvis was, well, the king…

Occasionally an idea will come to mind that’s claimed quickly and eloquently by someone else before you have a chance to execute it.  When Michael Jackson died I began dabbling with the subject of Jackson as Transhumanist, but my piece was only half-written when RU Sirius pretty much nailed the topic.  Nick Gillespie at Reason found the key lines from Sirius:  “Michael Jackson is obviously not an example of transhumanism to be followed.  But he is a signpost on the road to post-humanity. I believe the future will study him from that perspective, and in some odd way, it will learn from his many mistakes.”

Well said, and lesson learned:  When it comes to the world of ideas, if you snooze you lose.  (Unless you enhance your work capabilities with Provigil, of course, in which case you won’t do as much snoozing.)  But although the Michael Jackson moment has come and gone, a new event was commemorated this week:  the 75th birthday of Elvis Presley. Elvis was the primogenitor, the Omo I of rock and roll culture.  He didn’t just “ship a lot of units,” as they used to say in the record biz (back when there was a record biz.)  He changed everything.

Elvis was certainly considered different.  From his early days on he was an agent of radical transformation in sexuality, culture, and appearance.  At nineteen, he and his musicians seemed so unusual to the announcer at the Louisiana Hayride that he was asked, on the air, “You all geared up with your band there?”

“I’m all geared up!”  Elvis answered.

(3quarksdaily: Was Elvis a transhumanist?)

(Jack Womack: Elvissey)

 
(Possibly) coming soon to the UK’s Channel 4, a documentary which will show the process of mummification on a terminally ill volunteer:

Channel 4 and production company Fulcrum TV have advertised in magazines for possible candidates.  The advert reads: ‘We are currently keen to talk to some one who, faced with the knowledge of their own terminal illness and all that it entails, would nonetheless consider undergoing the process of an ancient Egyptian embalming.’  An English scientist claims to have unlocked the secrets of mummification.  His efforts at recreating the work of Egyptians will be the subject of the documentary.

And while this may only yield a doc in the UK, given the rising unemployment and costs of health care here in America, I could easily see this kind of thing taking off as a weekly series.  Let’s see…Embalming the Underinsured?

Channel 4 Seeks Terminally-ill Volunteer To Be Mummified In TV Documentary

 
A report on the LA Now blog indicates that police in So Cal are dealing with a group of criminals who “think different”:

The suspects sought by Manhattan Beach police had a specific method of operation, Brown said. They stake out an Apple store and choose their target. Then they follow their prospective victims when they drive to another shop or a parking spot near their home. If computers are left unattended inside the vehicle, the thieves strike.

His department issued a warning to consumers Tuesday not to leave computers or other expensive items in their vehicles in plain view.

“It’s a highly preventable crime if people don’t leave computers in their cars,” Brown said.

But law enforcement officials said despite the arrests in Orange County, they believe these follow-away burglaries are the work of a larger ring that has taken more than 100 computers in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties.

I was trying to come up with a punchline about Justin Long, but couldn’t and you just don’t want to force these things.

 
Isa Dick Hackett, daughter of Philip K. Dick, who wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which Blade Runner is based on (although the title itself comes from William S. Burroughs), is claiming Google is using names taken from her father’s work to brand its Nexus One telephones. She is threatening to sue Google for infringement of intellectual property rights. Something tells me there is going to be a nice payday in this for her. Google IS using names from her father’s work:

She has sent a letter to Google demanding that the online giant changes the name of its new phone, which was launched as a direct rival to the iPhone.

She said: ‘Google takes first and then deals with the fallout later.

‘In my mind, there is a very obvious connection to my father’s novel. People don’t get it. It’s the principle of it.

‘It would be nice to have a dialogue. We are open to it. That’s a way to start.’

The new product is based on Google’s Android technology, launched two years ago as a way of gaining a share in the mobile phone market.

Family of sci fi author Philip K. Dick to sue Google over name of Nexus One phone (Daily Mail)

io9 reports that scientists have created an algorithm so complex that no computer on earth is capable of solving it. This is, at present, likely our best insurance policy against the future sending back Terminators to kill John Connor, let alone sequels set in set future featuring those weird Godzilla, motorcycle and snake-Terminators. Damn future, always plotting to make new robots who hate man!

Quantum computers, which would rely on quantum mechanical concepts like superposition and entanglement to perform operations of unimaginable complexity, remain a pipe dream. But physicists have nevertheless come up with an algorithm that only quantum computers could use.

The newest algorithm, developed by Aram W. Harrow of the University of Bristol in England and Avinatan Hassidim and Seth Lloyd of MIT, tackles linear equations, which is something many students run across in high school or college. An example of such an expression is 3x + 4y = 12, with the variables and the constants on each side of the equation. Although it’s relatively easy to solve an expression with only two unknown values, it is another matter entirely to solve systems with billions of unknown values.

Such scenarios are hardly unusual; weather scenarios frequently involve just that many variables and equations. These so-called “N by N” systems, which have N linear equations and N unknown values, can be solved relatively easy with current algorithms, but time is a factor. Say it takes a computer one second to solve one linear equation. If the system has a billion variables, then it will take a billion seconds to figure out every value. That’s almost 32 years.

(io9: Super Algorithm)

 
Maybe David Letterman should retire his “Stupid Pet Tricks” segment in favor of a new one called “Stupid iPhone Apps.” Is it just me or are the below apps pointless time (and money) wasters? And a couple of them seem highly likely to cause actual damage to your iPhone. Apparently Apple sells 350 apps per minute from the iTunes app store—over 3 billion since it launched—but surely, soon, we’ll all be suffering from “cute” novelty burnout when the useful ideas have been used up ... or maybe not. Never underestimate the American consumer, eh?
 
Exhibit the first: Happy Dangy Diggy. This whimsical app allows you to blow virtual kisses to the object of your affection cyber-stalking. Although this might’ve come in handy were we in the midst of a full-blown H1N1 pandemic (you know, like the one that was supposed to happen), in the absence of a public health crisis, it’s just plain goofy. If you need an iPhone app to flirt, well, dude, you’re pathetic!
 
Next up: the iSteam app, which will fog up your iPhone with realistic digital fog. Someone showed me this at a party recently and I just shook my head in bored disbelief. You can simply breathe on your iPhone for free to fog it up, but at least that’s all that the app costs anyway. It’s gratis for now from the developer—which is about what it’s worth, if you ask me. Cute? Sure, but who cares?
 

 
Moving on, we have the iPhone Blower, which will push air out of your iPhone speaker. Enough to extinguish a candle. Big whoop. Watch the demo video:
 

 
If you don’t think this will cause damage to your iPhone ... then move on to the next two, the iHandWarmer (who thought that name up?) and Pocket Heat. The iHand Warmer actually kind of works by using up 100% of your CPU and draining the battery, but does it give off enough BTUs to really warm your hands? Doubtful. Pocket Heat, on the other hand, is admittedly mostly just a gimmick that’s meant to look like a space heater, rather than perform like one. Now that’s really pointless.
 

 
Via Gizmodo, Krapps and Brand X

 
Here’s something cooler than a canary in a coal mine: Tadpoles genetically engineered to glow when they encounter water pollution.

African clawed frog tadpoles modified with jellyfish genes show promise as a faster and less expensive way to detect pollution than traditional methods, say a University of Wyoming professor and researchers in France. What’s more, the green-glowing tadpoles indicate whether pollution exists in a form that can be absorbed by an organism and therefore might be dangerous to people. That’s more difficult with conventional methods.

“We’re tracking dosages that would show up in terms of development in either a person or a tadpole,” said Paul Johnson, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of Wyoming. Some tadpoles have been engineered to light up in response to metals. Others fluoresce when exposed to pollution from plastic that might cause health problems by mimicking the hormone estrogen.

Read the entire article at the Wyoming Tribune website

 
I really don’t think this was necessary. Thanks WowWee!
 
(via Unique Daily)

 
Total robot dedication here. From The Old Robots Web Site:

“THIS IS A ROBOT HOBBYIST WEB SITE I/WE DO NOT BUY AND/OR SELL ANYTHING ON THIS SITE.”

 

 
The Old Robots Web Site

 
You have to hand it to Lou Reed. For five decades, the guy’s been on the cutting edge of the cutting edge, from the avant-garde rock of the Velvet Underground to ... developing his own iPhone app?

Yup. Reed, perhaps rock’s most decadent artist of all, has just released his Lou Zoom app and it’s available at the iTunes store and his website. What does it do, you ask? Well, it’s not really for rock and roll animals; it’s more an app for old people. The Lou Zoom basically zooms in on your iPhone contacts list, turning it into the high-tech equivalent of one of those large-number telephones your grandma has. The price: $1.99.