the meta-angel

we're now at a point where there's a chance that "consciousness" will move beyond neuro-organic containers. to be sure, consciousness as we know it is a complex emergent feature of the interplay between the hardware of human physiology and the firmware of billions of years of behavioral evolution. current experiments in artificial intelligence are making good use of research in neuro-biology. we're only going to learn more about the interaction between the human consciousness program and the biocomputer on which it runs. i have faith that within our lifetimes we may begin to see neuro-cognitive protheses that repair some forms of brain damage or enhance the cognitive abilities of their users.

it's not difficult to imagine a device whose synthetic axons link carbon-based neurons and silicon systems. if you could connect a few thousand or tens of thousands of these synthetic axons to the human brain, you could begin to carry neurological signals over radio, fibre or copper data networks. with further research, we may uncover how to modulate these signals to present information these networks provide to the human consciousness.

taking this even further, if we developed a model of the human brain and it's interaction with consciousness, perhaps we could develop a brain simulator that is programmed by sending millions of synthetic axons into the human brain. at this point, your consciousness would exist in both places: inside your head, and inside the artificial system. it seems to me that you would be a hybrid being at that point. the big question is what happens when you cut the cord linking the two? would the massively parallel program running in the artificial brain be truly conscious? would it really be you?

we're now at the cusp where we can begin to expand consciousness into a new, slightly more abstract domain. psychologists have suggested the subjective experience of the self, by the wetware running inside your head is limited. the "you" that you think you are is a tiny fraction of what's going on; that's the idea of the subconscious, there's this huge reservoir of perceptual and cognitive processing that you just don't see. so you say the thing in the box isn't the real you? so what? neither are you.

An Open Letter to the Honorable Vaughn Walker

Dear Sir,

When they beat me in jr. high school because I was queer, I didn't really complain. I accepted that this was the price of being openly different from the norm.

When they screamed death threats at me at early pride parade(s), I didn't complain much. I accepted that some people condemn me, and the best path to acceptance was to live a virtuous life.

When my congregation turned their backs on me, refused me communion, and asked that I not return, I didn't complain. My god tells me to love unconditionally the divine nature in all living things. I know they'll eventually come around and understand this concept.

I now live in California and there's a chance I might be given the same privileges as straight people. The police here treat me with respect, as do county and state services. I am raising a child here and the schools accept me for what I am: a concerned parent of a second grader.

I don't have to tell anyone involved in the courts that legal decisions are made by way of compelling, logical arguments. But sometimes logic of the law yields to the feeling of the people. Justice and equanimity and equality are all difficult to describe without allowing the heart to inform the mind. A thousand logical arguments could be crafted to explain why same-sex marriage should be forbidden. But at the end of the day, keeping me from marrying my beloved is just plain wrong. It is morally wrong to give privileges to some, but not others.

The law cannot keep me from loving those whom I will, but the marriage contract as it stands now in California ensures I will never get what straight Californians get: the opportunity to live my life married to the person I love passionately; just like everyone else.

Sincerely,
Meadhbh Hamrick

sending love via twitter

so my day job is working for linden research (aka lindenlab.com.) we make a host of virtual world related products and services under the second life brand name. our community is equal parts vibrant, quirky and insanely brilliant. so are our developers.

one of the things that philip rosedale (our founder) was very much into was the idea of emergent social structures. second life is many things, and i'm pretty sure it's role as a test tube for experimental emergent social structures of vibrant, quirky and insanely brilliant people was intentional.

one of the tools we have internally is the "love machine." philip described it thusly in the interview at inc.com:

"The Love Machine allows anyone who works here as a Linden employee to send anyone else a brief note that says "Thank you for doing this for me." There is a little webpage where you can go to send an e-mail, and then you get a little e-mail that says "Love From Philip" in the subject and it's got text in it. Now, you think, what's the big deal about that? Well, all of that stuff goes into a database. Your review carries that. Everybody is sending love to each other. It creates a positive collaborative environment." --from "How I Did It: Philip Rosedale, CEO, Linden Lab"

there's no requirement to send love to your co-workers, but you can't opt out of the system. if someone wants to send you love, then dang nabbit, it's love you'll get. once you get a few bits of love, it's pretty easy to see what it's all about. if you do something good for someone, they send you love. you get small bits of encouragement that your work has impact in the company. and the little things add up over time...

"love" also serves to smooth the rough edges of sometimes stressful interpersonal communication. more than once i've been involved in animated technical discussions. from the outside they might look like work-related arguments. if you've been on the receiving end of critique of your ideas by technically brilliant people you respect, you know it can be emotionally draining. but anyone who's worked in tech knows that eventually, confrontations occur. i've found that intense discussions are more palatable when you trust that there's respect for the person, even when the person's ideas are taking flak. sending love is one of the ways we remind people internally that, "yes. even though i waved my arms in the discussion, it was still a valuable discussion, and i respect YOU." so the love machine is sometimes used as a salve for bruised egos.

but "love" in this context doesn't need a tool. you can send love via email, SMS, facebook or twitter. i use twitter a lot lately, which is why you'll frequently see me tweet things like "LOVE @soandso for something or other". this is my way of sending love via twitter.

give it a try sometime. send love to someone who's done right by you. it might just brighten someone's day.

meadhbh's new netbook

so the dell vostro a90 went on sale a couple days after my work mac bit the dust. i don't really belive in signs from dieties, but after realizing how much personal stuff i left on my work machine, i figured i should get a new machine.. quick!

i started thinking about the dell mini-9 as people were reporting good success with converting them to hackintoshes. at one time the idea of a small cheap machine running MacOS X intrigued me, and i figured if i ever wanted to do it, i should have a system with a good chance of being macified and functional at the same time.



but then i realized how little i cared about which desktop operating system i actually ran. i use google apps for writing docs and tracking projects and ideas. about the only apps i can't get on ubunntu or wintel is OmniGraffle and VoodooPad. but ahh... OmniGraffle is so nice. wintel users, you just don't what you're missing.

so anyway. here i am with a new netbook. it cost less than $300 and weighs not much more than a couple of pounds. it does the instant on thing pretty well, which is surprising 'cause the last time i had something nice to say about a system's "resume from sleep" behavior, i was saying it about my old TRS-80 model 100.

so here's the good and the bad about the vostro a90.

bad:

1. i can't run the second life client on the darn'd thing to save my life. this is embarassing; i work at linden research and i have a machine that doesn't do SL. i anticipate several late nights with a debugger ahead.

2. i can't get the thing to bluetooth pair with my android g1. at least this one's not my fault.

3. you have to speak with dell to order one.

good:

1. wow. this thing is light!

2. pretty darn'd cheap!

3. silent and cool.

note that i didn't make any great claims about the keyboard; good or bad. if your're used to a full sized desktop keyboard, you won't like this one. if you're used to a Psion Revo, this is a step up. it also has the annoying habit of randomly pasting my paste buffer in whatever document i'm currently editing.

so... all in all a nice little addition to my tech life. if, like me, you have small fingers and are willing to trade screen real estate for moderate improvements on battery life and serious improvements on weight. you may be interested in something like this.