The Underground Cities of... Kansas City, MO...?

A tunnel beneath Kansas City - The Kansas City Star

"Kansas City policeman Jason Cooley told the paper that officers found a series of winding underground tunnels and were directed there because of a recent crime spree.

‘One of the tunnels probably went 20 to 25 feet underground towards the back and veered off in another direction about six feet or so,’ he told the Kansas City Star, adding that they discovered candles and bedding as well in some of the cavern’s alcoves.

It is unclear who exactly the homeless people are, or how they dug such

deep entrenchments."

- Kansas City homeless city: Group found living underground and in crude camps

Hmmm... kind of looks like Cappadocia. 

Allegedly, however, the tunnels beneath Kansas City, Missouri, were made by a group of homeless people. Well, we don't actually see the homeless people... though at the end of the KMBC newscast video found here, a scruffy fellow named Scott ambles into the frame and then walks away pushing his bicycle... ?

Crypto-strange-o to me... And Mac, whose last home was in Kansas City, just might've agreed. ;-)

Welcome to 2045

"We believe that it is possible and necessary to eliminate aging and even death, and to overcome the fundamental limits of the physical and mental capabilities currently set by the restrictions of the physical body.

Scientists from various countries in the world are already developing technology that ensures the creation of an artificial human body prototype within the next decade. We believe the biggest technological project of our times will become the creation of such artificial human body and a subsequent transfer of individual human consciousness
 to such a body."

- International Manifesto of the "2045" Strategic Social Initiative

Joining the Billionaire-Boys-With-Big-Ideas-Club in 2011 (along with the likes of Elon Musk - the man who wants to die on Mars - and Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg) was Russian media mogul, Dmitry Itskov, 32. Whereas, Futurist Ray Kurzweil may have predicted a technological Singularity for 2045, Itskov launched his own political party in Russia last year- Evolution 2045 - to orchestrate Kurzweil's ideas into official reality. And, apparently, he means business... Big Business, involving his fellow billionaires, and/or, at least, their bucks, with the formal launching of his 2045 Strategic Social Initiative.

In June of this year, Itskov will host the second annual International Global Future 2045 Congress at the Lincoln Center in New York. The goal is to create a "suitable environment for the creative synthesis of scientific theories and spiritual traditions and practices". Two speakers at the congress will be Hiroshi Ishiguro, who is widely known for his robot doppelgangers, and David Hanson, famous for creating robot versions of Albert Einstein and Phillip K. Dick.

Itskov's agenda, and one of which he has no doubts about? To eventually produce the ways and means of uploading human consciousness into holographic "Avatars", thereby attaining human immortality.

I think Mac Tonnies would've found Itskov's enthusiasm exhilarating... up to and including Itskov's "synthesis" of science and the spiritual. For a few Posthuman Blues essays on the subject, try here, here, and here. One the other hand, here's a post regarding Mac's "transhumanist misgivings".

Death in Cyberspace

"As we lead more of our lives online, we leave behind an ever bigger digital footprint when we go. There are the public parts - the blogs, the tweets, the forum posts - but also the private things such as the emails stored on servers owned by companies like Google. Sorting out the digital legacy is becoming as onerous as being a traditional executor."

The conundrum continues.

If you've followed this blog for several years, you're probably already aware of several treatments of this topic - death in cyberspace - all of which mention Mac Tonnies, and, all of which I've posted about in the past. There was a 2009 German television spot, the 2011 New York Times article, a 2011 Kansas City NBC television spot, and the VOA radio broadcast from last year.

The quote above is from BBC Radio 4, which, in today's broadcast, treats the subject from a more legal standpoint. No, Mac isn't mentioned this time around - though I was approached initially, but had to decline due to a schedule conflict -  but, you can listen to Out of the Ordinary (Part 3) now on the BBC's RadioPlayer. It'll be available throughout the week.

UPDATE - 4/8/13: To listen to the BBC Radio 4 broadcast now and in the future, here's the dedicated link: Out of the Ordinary (Part 3).

A Strangely New "Gray Mars"

Mars, 2013 - Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

"We have characterized a very ancient, but strangely new 'gray Mars' where conditions once were favorable for life," said John Grotzinger, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. 

- NASA Rover Finds Conditions Once Suited for Ancient Life on Mars

NASA announced today the results of rock samples gathered last month, and the verdict is in: yes, ancient Mars could've supported life! Of course, by "life" NASA scientists are referring to the microbial... to which the Martians among us say "ho hum"... and, of course, the verdict may be overturned at some point - like the great Martian water debate... which I'm not sure has been really settled yet - but, we may as well play along. Hell, what have we got to lose... except time? ;-)

Atomic Tom...

... recently abducted from the Art Shaman's workshop. The best part? It's functional!

(Sorry, Bob, but I just had to have it!)

A Vision of the Apocalypse - Now!

Normally, this blog is not a news site, but I just caught this bit of breaking news a few minutes ago from the Guardian: Meteorite explosion over Chelyabinsk injures hundreds,

and this video is so riveting, I was compelled to post it.  More can be found in the article.

The number of people injured varies, from 500 to 1000, but, apparently the meteorite broke up above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. Hopefully there were no fatalities. Pretty scary stuff. And, although explanations vary, this isn't the first time Russia was in the cosmic line of fire... see the Tunguska event.  Mac's posts about Tunguska can be found here.

Wired: Table Of Malcontents

"Post-Human Blues: Mac Tonnies is undeniably a bit of a weirdo. Perhaps that’s why I like him so much, though I agree with nearly nothing that he writes. His subject is largely the future of humanity: he enthusiastically imagines a future, sometimes hopefully, sometimes apocalyptically, where the transhuman is real."

- John Brownlee - via this post from the 2007 Wired blog: Table of Malcontents 

More Mac trivia... an excerpt of this quote is blurbed on the PHB side-bar, but Mac also posted about it here (with comments from Brownlee and himself).

Table of Malcontents seems to have been a fine blog, but, unfortunately, only lasted 9 months.

Note: this post replaces the 2011 video, Robots of Brixton by Kibwe Tavares and Factory Fifteen. It lost too much in a small format, but, if you haven't caught it in the past, it can be seen in its full glory here.

From The Other Side

Jim Harold's Paranormal Plus Club

Brought to you from the Other Side (no, not that other side), Jim Harold's radio show... where Paul Kimball discusses his friend, Mac Tonnies, at some length. Topics include Post Human Blues; Volume I, the 2006 New Frontiers Symposium, and those enigmatic Crypto's. The Other Side is subscription-only listening, but Paul has graciously provided a direct link to the MP3. Thanks, Paul!

Note: Just in case you missed it, Paul chatted with George Noory on Coast to Coast AM last month...  notice (& link) can be found here.

The Moth & The Machine

"Lead author of the research, Dr Noriyasu Ando, said: "The simple and robust odour tracking behaviour of the silkmoth allows us to analyse its neural mechanisms from the level of a single neuron to the moth's overall behaviour. By creating an 'artificial brain' based on the knowledge of the silkmoth's individual neurons and tracking behaviour, we hope to implement it into a mobile robot that will be equal to the insect-controlled robot developed in this study...

The best way to elicit adaptive behaviours of insects is to put them into extraordinary situations. The turning bias in our study is analogous to a situation in which we try to ride unbalanced bicycles. We need training to ride such bicycles smoothly but the silkmoth overcomes the situation with only simple and fast sensory-motor feedbacks," said Dr Ando."

- Excerpt from a 2/5/13 Phys.org article: Insect drives robot to track down smells 

***

Life imitating art again... specifically my art... blogged about previously here and finally, here. Whatdaya mean you can't make this sh*t up? ;-)

By the way, it took 14 silkmoths to complete this study. I say no more.

(Hat tip to Perceval at the Daily Grail.)

(Detail) Worm's Last Memory - Digital - 2009, Dia Sobin

Mind Meld: Science Fiction and Science Fact

Screen shot from the 2002 Sy-Fi miniseries Taken

"Turns out two heads really are better than one. Two people have successfully steered a virtual spacecraft by combining the power of their thoughts - and their efforts were far more accurate than one person acting alone. One day groups of people hooked up to brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) might work together to control complex robotic and telepresence systems, maybe even in space."

- Excerpt from a New Scientist article, Mind-meld brain power is best for steering spaceships by Paul Marks, February 1, 2013

From the life-imitates-art file: I was taking my daily stroll through Graham Hancock's news page today, when I came across the link to the (above) New Scientist article about brain-computer interfacing. I'd heard of instances where brain signals can now be used to control computer operated devices - such as prosthetic limbs - but the idea of more than one brain controlling complex systems "in space" immediately rang a bell.

And then I remembered why. If you ever saw that Sy-Fi miniseries Taken (from way back when in 2002) - directed by Stephen Spielberg, and one of my personal favorites - you probably have this scene embedded in your head: a pair of middle-aged psychic twins who unwittingly become (doomed) participants in a secret government experiment to test-fly a captured alien spacecraft using human "mind power". It was ultimately pretty horrifying... the twins suffering cerebral hemorrhages as they sat, completely unprotected - in the strange alien cockpit. (see screen-shot above).

The film's premise for the alien craft was that it was powered by the alien brains... although instead of two in a virtual spacecraft, as in the article, it took 5 brains for intergalactic space travel.

Below is a clip from Taken - the first 4 minutes describing the craft's power source. As for the fate of the psychic twins - that can be found 7 minutes into this clip.

Hungry for Mars?

I guess I must be!

 Found a listing for Curiosity rover weekly reports and thought I'd share. It's about as close to a walk on Mars that one can get presently...

For past & future reports, try here.

Blade Runner Revisited

"We may not literally have built Replicants yet, but the thrust of Dick's ideas, brought to life in Blade Runner, was not really about that. The point was that the Replicants could be anyone. The robots-becoming more-human-than-human trope was only a metaphor for collective dissociation, brought on by exponential progress. In that dissociative societal process, who can say who the arbiters of rationality, normality and morality are?"

- excerpt from Retro-futurism: 1968 On the Way to 2019 via Histories  of Things To Come

For all you Blade Runner fanatics out there - and Mac was surely one - check out the latest post over at Histories of Things to Come... it just might make your day.