I don’t know what it is, but I’m claiming it! I just made it up! Copiers not allowed! Protected by SmartDataMark & MemoryKnight™/#fuckoffevil.
United States of Wonder, Photo Project
January 20, 2009 – 8:08 pm
Was just thinking it would be cool to put together a really massive collaborative photo project, to take the notion of “Hope” - the wish that something good might happen and translate it to awe and wonder, the actual physical sensorial experiential experience of it actually happening.
I would love to see a hundred thousand a billion photos, black and white headshots of people from all around the world, all ages, in their own state of utter rapture, wonder, fulfillment, awe, ecstasy, bliss.
Any project organized around such a principle is by its very nature assured success. It spreads what it is.
Microword Coporation and all the members of MSFT Word Resource Consortium Software Promotion Companies
January 20, 2009 – 7:12 pm
microword, bitches! spam we got at mandala OS, trying to work with them diplomatically. According to the spam “your email won the prize” so I think we’re off to a good start here then!
And you know, maybe that’s what Microsoft really owns at the end of the day, the fact that no matter what else you attach it to, they own the prefix “micro” in association with electronics. Hands down. They may have shitty bloated products, but you can’t touch their linguistic/concept association in the whatever front whosimawhatzit cortex thingies…
Response to DIASTAR TEST?
January 20, 2009 – 6:44 pm
Just found this in the comments to the post on the mysterious Diastar Test symbol:
HTML code with a link but no link text by a gmail user going under the handle “Pfaffy”. The link points to:
http://www.mosaicsdirect.com/Mosaic1000.html, a website whose tagline is “Marble Mosaic Medallions - 40 Inch“.
I’m deleting the original comment because it is blank. At first blush it looks like spam, but the symbolic mandala-like nature of the product being advertised doesn’t seem accidental. Mandala OS in action? You tell me. Your move punk.
Body Swap Illusion
January 20, 2009 – 1:34 pm
Another great find from @spencernobleman:
Now researchers from the Karolinska Institute report that they have induced a “body-swap” illusion, whereby subjects perceived the body of another person as belonging to themselves. Their findings are published today in the open access journal PLoS One. [...]
Normally, the position of one’s body corresponds directly to the way it feels and the way it looks and, as a result, one can identify their own body as belonging to themselves, and also distinguish very easily between the “self” and “non-self” (or objects in the external world).
Under certain circumstances, however, the sense of body ownership can be perturbed, and sometimes this has bizarre consequences. Take, for example, somatoparaphrenia, a condition in which ownership of the left hand or leg is denied, following damage to the right parietal lobe. Often, patients with this condition perceive their limb to belong to, and to be controlled by, another person. Or take hemispatial neglect, a related disorder, which also occurs as a result of brain damage. [...]
Afterwards, the participants were interviewed, so that their perceptual experiences could be established. They reported that in the synchronous condition they had perceived the researcher’s arm as their own, and that they sensed their entire body behind it. Some even spontaneously remarked with comments such as “Your arm felt like it was my arm, and I was behind it”, “I felt that my own body was someone else” or “I was shaking hands with myself!”. Remarkably, they also reported that the sensations evoked when the researcher squeezed their hands seemed to originate from the researcher’s hand and not from their own. This illusion was vivid and robust - it persisted even though their own body was in full view, and regardless of either the sex of the researcher or the shape of their body. Furthermore, the participants exhibited anxiety when a knife was placed just above the researcher’s wrist, but not when it was placed near their own.
Bluetooth Sensory Substitution Mouth Interface, Natural Language Processing & Programming, Cunning
January 20, 2009 – 12:40 pm
Introduction
Thinking through the technical hurdles related to widespread adoption of a sensory substitution interface model such as BrainPort, it occurred to me that any kind of “lollipop” device applied to the tongue as a means of interfacing data would be likely, over time, to mess up one’s teeth: just like sucking one’s thumb does to a child.
So my thought process turned to existing technological models which people employ in their mouth for other reasons: things like retainers, braces, etc. Which associatively brought me back to the word “Bluetooth”, a protocol for wirelessly transmitting data. I collected the following images as associative inspiration:
Associated Imagery
The notion of a mouth-based interface for pervasive computing also turned my thoughts towards natural language processing and natural language programming, supposedly part & parcel of the upcominig Web 3.0 model, something that I call BUILDSPEAK. And then there is subvocal speech technology, intended to be able to “read” words that you only say internally, that don’t even cross your lips. We begin to move into the realm of the cunning folk, those who simply “know” and through their knowledge may bring thought into reality.
Associated Quotations
[source]
“Recent advances in functional brain imaging and the current interest in human-computer interactions have resulted in increased attention towards the study of perceptual processes. Projects in tactile perception are investigating strategies for the transmission of temporal, spatial and spatio-temporal information to subjects through specific sites on the skin by means of purpose-built stimulator hardware, including tactile arrays which deliver complex stimuli to the fingertip via a close-packed set of vibratory transducers, producing virtual touch sensations that mimic “natural” touch. Spatial distribution of touch stimulation is important in relation to texture representation and in relation to defining the edges and corners of objects.”
[source]
“Everything begins with thought. Patterns of connected thought create context in English. Context patterns operate as elements, or chunks, of thought. Their formulaic patterns have no exceptions, operate as a set theory, and make English a relational data system. Meaning derives by relationship. The dog bit the man. The man bit the dog. Same words. Different order. Different meaning.”
[source]
“Another approach involves placing electrodes on the neck, to detect changes in impedance during speech. A neural network processes the data and identifies the pattern of words. The sensor can even detect subvocal or silent speech. The speech pattern is sent to a computerised voice generator that recreates the words.”
And Blustr put together a brainstorm idea collection closely related to this concept:
- small iPhone-like mobicomp device that clips over tooth (apparently eye tooth best for audiphone-style device)
- tilt sensor/accelerometer tracks head movement
- spoken/whispered(/subvocal?) command interface from microphone
- haptic tongue-controlled interface from moving tip of tongue against device
- “click” by opening and closing mouth and variable pressure from clenching jaw
- feedback in form of stimulation/taste/video through tongue (see TMBCHR link)
- sound/music played through tooth/bone (see audiphone)
- aesthetic “bonus”, iPhone meets grill/gold tooth
See also: !Kung language, whistled languages, etc.
