::snort::

Via the Grinder krewe at Grinding.be - thanks, Xutraa.

Lo, there be Spoilers here
After watching these characters’ lives be shredded, built up, re-shredded and eventually ground into a gaseous mist of blood, there was no other way to end Battlestar Galactica . These characters have gone through the fucking wringer for our amusement and we needed to pay tribute to the characters - the actors, the writers, and production team. And I didn’t mind giving them that moment, after all the “Oh Shit” moments they’ve given me.

A Child’s Odyssey… and Adult’s
From the very beginning, Ronald D. Moore’s BSG set off on a parallel path of the 70s show, and if you look at the two shows, I see one as the children’s version of BSG and the other the accurate one, comparing children’s nativity plays to the sick fucking Passion-of-the-Christ blood and gore. Even down to the Angelic version of characters in this intergalatic odyssey, there’s a kid’s version and the “warts and all” truth version.

BSG was ripe for it’s time: in moment of panic, America was about to declare war on the world to ensure tyrants never force others to obey them. There’s a kernel of painful truth in that last sentence. BSG similarly blockaded the characters into a metal box against a deadly environment. The metaphor wasn’t just spot-on, but obvious.

So, what does this mean to television?
I don’t know. I do believe that episodic TV that has no goal is mind is reaching an end. Personally, while I can’t stand 5 minute episodes like The Guild or Red vs. Blue - funny as they are, the story is never deep enough for me. And excellently written TV is now more rare, especially with the CSI/Numbers/Bones feces-infested shows that insult everyone who participates in them these days. Real science is hard. Real life is hard. Why don’t we EVER see the villain get away and the cold case grow cold, die, and be an bitter pill.

BSG gaves us plenty of bitter pills, from romances that should’ve and shouldn’t to betrayals to the worst suicide ever depicted on tv (Dualla’s). Depressing and horrific. But it made for a compelling story. End to end, BSG left it’s mark on television.

The Cautionary
The cautionary tale of BSG truly is what is the next phase of life. Where do we go from here? My opinion is we go forward. We build the robots. We make the AI. We do it early. We do it often. We do it prolifically. And we make a strong effort to not obliterate ourselves in the process. We do these things like the way we climb mountains: because we can, because it’s there. Moore’s cautionary also comes with the nature of man, questioning the religious effort of people. Having heard him speak a couple times, he’s as brazen as most people get about this.

But still we have billions of people working to perpetrate the myth machines. However, Moore has as well. Making Kara Thrace an angel - or a construct that fulfilled it’s mission and self-deleted, and implying that Caprica 6 and Baltar could see constructs/angels, means there’s a design in the chaos. It’s very ham-handed, deus ex machina, and my rational-minded viewpoint, disappointing. I believe he backed down from the wall of “your religions are lies” - spoon feeding myth-lovers a last minute backdoor so that “everything” end ok because a deity is looking out for these characters.

Yes, this is one of those cool “ooo, look at the stats with nice visuals and excellent music.” (Fatboy Slim rocks) But it’s a great example that we must adapt, and we must adapt at a faster rate than ever before. Everyone is going to suffer from being “too old” or “not up to date” - which is very similar to being within the proximity of a black hole - time slows, and we can’t perceive changes.

Time isn’t slowing or speeding with the Singularity/Posthuman Rise/Rapture of the Nerd - we’re just unable to adapt to the rate of change.

We’re knowingly obsolete.

And that’s ok.

In the future, the music will make you dance… no, really, it will MAKE you dance. Honestly, I love this experiential idea that you feel the music and move to a choreographed musical design. Can you imagine body suits that choreograph hundreds or thousands all to perform the same movement all over the world at the same time… to music?

I also love how the guy in the top right keeps smiling and the guy in the lower right is just trying to endure it.

From the awesome folks at Pink Tentacle.

Recently, Grinding.be posted a response to a Daily Galaxy’s longevity articles’ counterpoint by Bioethicist Leon Kass, and the cultural barriers he’s creating to longevity.

A quote that guts me is “the finitude of human life is a blessing for every human individual.” I’ve heard these words before from my mother of all people, who is smart but has no social agenda such as Kass and his ilk. I’d love to live to a thousand to see what humans become and how they change. I am overwelmed with what humans have done in our past and wonder what we’re going to be like. My mother doesn’t share that interest - she wants to die happy, healthy and secure. A “good, long run” as they call it today. Granted, the medical discoveries in 20 years may not be enough to trans-humanize her, but she’s dying on the cusp.

The major problem with Kass’ words is “blessing for every human individual.” I’m fairly certain that many boys dying from bullet wounds, parentless in Sierra Leone do not share that belief. Whereas, ironically, the suicidal religious people we’re encountering throughout the world feel extremely blessed.

Setting the blessing aside, I have to ask - “what is Kass’ goal?” Kass and people like Kass have some sort of entrenched meme that locks them into thinking breeding-is-good and redemptive-death-is-good. But living intellectually free is bad. Kass’ is creating a cultural barrier, or perhaps simply participating in a cultural barrier, that restricts change. Through capitalism, such barriers cause high risk-vs-reward mechanisms, but in this case, I believe the rewards is much more than money and resources.

Kass’ approach is an inhibitor of wide-spread use of life-extension, and those who have the resources to circumvent the obstacles Kass and ilk propose will cause a have/havenot split.

Now, you can almost argue that there’s the root of human races in our current world: homo sapiens capitalis (Western people with long lives and surmounting technology and culture) and homo sapiens restrictis (a population restricted to geography by infrastructure and warfare).

Right now, it doesn’t take much to cross over - in fact, those who reason/strive/risk it out, leave their community to societies more tolerant and stable. Those left behind without the resources are stuck in worn-torn areas (Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone). But even that risk adds Darwinistic competition to the human race.

If homo sapiens capitalis develops a technology that creates such life extension, and Kass-ites can prevent just enough access, the race will split.

And compete for resources.

That’s a little foreboding. However, the alternative is that if individuals were allowed to choose their evolutionary paths, if they could decide which of their genetic and memetic views would procreate. What’s strange, if you think about it, is that Kass is choosing. It’s just he’s fighting to prevent our right to choose as well.

I’m a proud owner of a T-Mobile G1. I’m ahead of the curve. I’m showing brand name loyalty to Google, the smart and cool technology brand. I’m… well, I’m a little miffed at my experience with getting this damned thing fixed.

It began when one of my other early adopter friends came over and said, “Have you seen Bubble?” Bubble is a beautiful level tool. Set your G1 on any surface and a level bubble comes up and tells you all sorts of good details. Great for carpenters and home decorators who want a level surface. And when it doesn’t work, it means your G1 isn’t as cool as the next guy’s G1. That’s it. You, my trendsetting G1 friend, can’t level your desk with your phone.

So… I went to the T-Mobile store. To the T-mobile teen-aged drones working there, I had to explain the mercury switch sensor. “Why would you want that?” They, a trio consisting of a young man, and two young women, had never seen a G1 and of all of the explanation, finally understood one word: “games.” But they did what any mcjob drone did, they called tech support for me. Heareforafter, I shall dub them the Drones.

Now, I’m not angry at the Drones, but the goddamned music in the store was so loud, they could barely hear each other. I don’t think any one of them had the braincells to turn the volume down so they could talk amongst themselves let alone on the phone. And while they have all the common courtesy I’ve come to expect from the-young-and-the-brainless, they just. didn’t. get. it. that I had a phone and wanted service.

Until I got angry. First, I was on tech support, straining to hear the poor woman with a thick Jamaican accent. Just as I had to explain the mercury switch feature to the Drones, I had to do it all over again. She didn’t believe me that a phone had a tilt-sensor. She didn’t think I was calling about the right phone. In fact, she put me on hold after saying “Just one moment.”

“Thank you for calling, HTC Support, this is Brian.”

“What happened to the other woman I was talking to?”

“Who? Who is this?”

*sigh* Thus, for the third time I launch into the spiel of mercury switch explanations. O, happy day. This eventually ends up with “Sir, we can open a ticket for you but the phone will have to be sent in.” “Ok,” I reply. The Drone manager - not quite a queen bee by any intellectual measure - but has picked up that something has begun to go wrong, not because I’m coming in with a broken phone, and not because my ears are bleeding now, but because of my demeanor.

Princess Drone takes the phone, talks it over with HTC, and eventually comes to a conclusion that T-Mobile Tech Support forwarded me to someone else entirely, but they work out that I’d have to turn in my phone and start the entire experience all over again, by… wait for it… calling T-Mobile Tech Support. I, before I raised my voice, said “Thank you, I’m going to be late as it is,” and left, wish the Drones a good evening. I enjoyed their chorus of “We’re sorry,” and filtered my last comment, wishing it was the wails of the damned in Hell, rather than incompetent T-Mobile Drones.

So, today, I’m going to a DIFFERENT T-mobile store, and hoping for a DIFFERENT client experience. I get it that G1 wants to compete with Apple, but by now, I’d have a working Apple phone, whereas, my mercury switch still doesn’t work. I realize my phone works fine except the sensor, and my complaints are few and far between. It’s just that it shouldn’t be so hard to get decent service.

OK, so let’s look at the changes in my life in the last week. I’ve finally found a lawyer I like, but we’re playing some serious phone tag, so once again the friggin’ book is delayed. Finally got a haircut, which always coincides we me feeling happier since I don’t have so much weight pressing down on my brain.

But the real improvement is my phone. Now, I don’t believe my G1 is a complete and total improvement - I believe it’s a sad state of affairs that I can’t play games on my phone. No, REAL games, not just casual bubble popping, match the color and shape games. Granted, those seem to be making the most money these days, like Bejeweled.

So I don’t interact with my phone as much and frankly, the interface, while beautiful needs the equivalent of a shell (like a unix shell, not sea shell… well, that too, but I mix my metaphor with my reality if I think too much on that) for ease of use.

What could we do? Neopets for adults… well, mature audiences… no… basically an interaction toy that show other toys, like how Spore was marketed but on the G1. With fun. But not Pokemons. A player can interact with the toy solo and if he wants, he could play against others.

Strange, somehow I still feel I’m talking with the wrong metaphor. OK, let’s try this again, but give it a gameplay context.

So, let’s say you’re a wizard of a city state and your job is to make your kingdom powerful and big. Other players are the neighbors around you. On your G1, you could play solo where you work to improve capitalize on your resources. Cooperatively, you could work commerce and trade with other kingdoms. Large scale decisions for cooperative play comes to bare with world-events, say disasters (dragons, barbarian hordes).

Over time, it could become a fairly complicated and decent play.

On a G1… you know, the *cool* phone.

*SIGH*

IO9 and Anders Sandberg both have thrown in their hats on why posthumans get the short shaft in Hollywood movies. IO9 basically took the bombastic route, and of course, Anders is far more intelligent about the analysis.

I keep saying that posthumanity is going grow from fashion - we’ve seen the adoption of clear indicators of posthumanity: cochlear impants, bluetooth earbuds, extreme body modifications, and the acceptance of handicap access (such as very large people torturing electric gokarts at shopping malls) in our society. The more people overcome their physical form, the more accepting we’re going to be of true cybernetics.

Movies, on the other hand, have had different take for several reasons, but the easiest is Sandberg’s point that transhumans are transgressions against purity/sanctity. But we’ve had some excellent examples of good stories. Leaving comic heroes gone to movies out of this discussion, the quintessential movies all have transformative stories of the big transhumanist bad guys:

Terminator has the malevolent posthuman intelligence (Skynet, not the terminator) but Terminator 2 has the whole “boy and his terminating pet” theme where the advanced intelligence knows better than the boy, proving that destructive T-800 flesh on top of metal exoskeleton have hearts too.

Any version of Blade Runner works for this as well. Rutger Hauer’s delivery of “tears in rain” all points to how superior humans are both a menace and a boon to sentience at large.

Last but not least, Kurt Rusell as Dexter Riley in the Computer Wore Tennis Shoes transforms from an all-American kid to a super intelligent freak of nature… and back to a kid again. Because we all know that super intelligence isn’t a threat to anyone.

But I digress a bit. I refer to Lovecraft’s fear of the unknown quote - once we get over the initial fear, we’ll realize it’s not so bad being better at what we do.

I applaud the Olympic committee’s decision to allow Oscar Pistorius, a 21-year-old South African double-amputee sprinter, to compete for the Olympics. Slashdot has generously already provided all the pros and cons - documenting all the fears and expectations that will come of this decision of allowing Pistorius to compete.

Our bodies are not the end of our existence - they are the beginning and while we’ve received the fortunate benefits of evolutionary drive - Pistorius is an example of how and in what way we’re going to change ourselves - engineer ourselves - to become more of what we want to be.

Cries of unfair treatment exist on both sides of this call - one side says he’s a runner and should be allowed to compete, the other point out he’s not completely human. It’s a phenomenon of introducing change into the status quo.

Pistorius’ appendages are no different when you see obese or old people on electric go-carts, or when others perform wheelchair races. We must move forward, and moving forward requires people like Pistorius to not accept his body as a limitation, Olympic members to make decisions like the one above, and for all of us people to accept those who either by accident or design set themselves so far apart.

We are phenomenal minds and we should be allowed to live phenomenal ways.

Recently, a friend of mine dropped me a link to some kinetic typography on Youtube.com: a beautiful rendition of the “What Does Marcellus Wallace look like?” Pulp Fiction scene done completely in moving type. Then of course, I went on my pig-hunting-for-internet-truffles mode and discovered a Fight Club’s Space Monkey scene, more Pulp Fiction shooting Marvin in the head, and the supremely beautiful Singing in the Rain Clockwork Orange style.

Immediately after I wasted a few hours, my mind started wandering how can we make a game of speech and typography? More than a game, but a communication method that allows for both hearing and deaf people (who yell by gesturing with exaggerated moves) to combine type and graphics generated by their actions. Combine the texting message of “kthxbai” with waving hand and an image showing a phone hanging up, but only for a full speech.

Think of it as a Crayon Physics meets Guitar Hero meets KidPix where a player’s actions are translated into a graphical art form, translated in real time.

The game modes would be
- A collaborative and competitive Poetry Slam, where mp3s and scripts are translated into graphical typographical art, and each player adds to the display, where movie scenes can be downloaded onto your xBox.
- One person Freespeak, where voice translations between poets/rappers/debaters (if possible) are translated into typography, and their gestures impact their words.
- Great Speeches, where the words of Martin Luther King Jr or John F Kennedy or Malcomb X are translated into artful works through player’s emotive translations.
- ASL Learner - a basic, medium and advanced method to learn American Sign Language (or any other non-verbal language).

There would need to be a bunch of sensors - hands, fingers and maybe feet for dancing. A standardized interface would need to be used to change fonts and colors during the scenes.

Would it sell a million? Probably not. Would it open people up to doing something fun with computers interactively? Yes, I believe so.