cyborgs | Nothing Just Is

E-books we’ve written:

Tao Te Ching

Death by Halloween

On The Wire: Thirteen essays on The Wire, Season 1

The Horrible Cripple of Toothpick Palace
Works Consulted

David Foster Wallace asks, "Is all this security worth it?"

How to beat terrorism: Refuse to be terrorized.

An award acceptance speech in which Julian Assange claims Wikileaks is an intelligence organization of the people.

To say that excessive secrecy is a vastly greater problem than unauthorized leaking is to understate the case.

On the news of what was thought to be a state driven hacker campaign that lasted, in some case, a few years, an expert concludes that he divides "the entire set of Fortune Global 2000 firms into two categories: those that know they’ve been compromised and those that don’t yet know.”

Part two of Clay Shirky's conflicted musings on Wikileaks in which he discusses the difference between international and global actor.

Part one of Clay Shirky's conflicted musings on Wikileaks in which he discusses its effects on the international system over the long haul.

A stimulating collection of Alan Watts thoughts with some commentary.

An Alan Watts radio broadcast on music and life animated by the South Park crew.

Exciting or frightening: Scientists have successfully put memory chips in rat brains.

The open data movement seeks an information commons where private collectors no longer maintain control over the data they collect and people donate their data to a common pool.

Interesting profile of the rise of Al Jazeera and the Arab Spring

A terrific unpacking of the "I've got nothing to hide" response to invasions of privacy.

The emergence of digital money might be the most dangerous innovation yet generated by the internet.

Long live the Patriot Act...unfortunately.

Interesting information about recent internal power politics threatening the suddenly ubiquitous Anonymous movement.

Could it be that the human sense of the sacred -- and not the development of agriculture -- gave rise to civilization itself?

Fair trade coffee: what happens when good intentions do not equal good outcomes?

Troubling allegations against Wikileaks that raise questions about its own internal business ethic.

Christopher Hitchens responds to Chomsky's article on the killing of Osama bin Laden.

A profile of internet privacy crusader Jake Applebaum and his quest to make online anonymity available to internet users globally.

A frequently used but ambiguous term, neoliberalism, critiqued. What exactly is the essence of this current wave of austerity?

The tricks of the trade as told by one of America's most successful, non-violent bank robbers.

Some reflections on the death of Osama by a man who won the Pulitizer covering him.

I'm thrilled Elizabeth May won a seat for the Greens but wonder if most voters, and even some of their supporters, know the Green Party platform might not conform to their expectations.

A comparison of democratic potential in Egypt and Tunisia by an influential theorist on transitions from authoritarianism.

A short essay in support of books and against that ever-pervasive e-reader.

A more detailed explanation of the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak does not yet exist on the internet.

Why is it that the capitalist West has accumulated more resources than human history has ever witnessed, yet appears powerless to overcome poverty, starvation, exploitation, and inequality? What are the mechanisms by which affluence for a minority seems to breed hardship and indignity for the many? Why does private wealth seem to go hand in hand with public squalor?

Review of a children's story about a suicidal astronaut by Muammar al-Qaddafi, and other classic literature written by dictators.

Russia's 'Julian Assange' takes on goverment corruption in a state that has tended towards ruthlessly suppressing criticism and dissent.

As if power in the media wasn't centralized enough!

Houston Police try to implement spy drone program while you're not looking.

Federal Grand Jury Considering Charges Against WikiLeaks’ Assange.

Julian Assange has "come to understand the defining human struggle not as left versus right, or faith versus reason, but as individual versus institution."

Web censorship scares me.

Meditation (along with everything else) reshapes your brain.

Ant colonies, neurons, and collective decision making--all rolled into one!

It's official. Angela Merkel says so: Multiculturalism has failed. Miserably.

Some details on PROFUNC, a Canadian national security program and its links to the October Crisis.

A gallery of snapshots from the streets of Montreal after Marshall Law was declared and the army deployed in 1970.

A little perspective as we come upon the 40th anniversary of the FLQ crisis.

Canada's multiculturalism remains a complex challenge to legislate. Let's hope we keep trying.

As if confronting the past isn't hard enough already. Try coming terms with the legacies of Stalin and Lenin in a state like modern Russia.

A review of "The Lathe of Heaven," by Ursala K. Le Guin, featuring a most Taoist main character.

Sage advice from the small, ageing circle of Canadian translators. Interested readers should bring resumes.

Edward Said tears apart Huntington's thesis of the clash of civilizations. There was no official report of tears.

Seventeen years ago, Huntington warned of a clash of civilizations. It hasn't happened quite like that. Does this mean we've all learned to get along?

An interview with Edith Grossman, who recently translated Don Quixote, and has plenty of good advice for prospective translators, or interpreters...

The philosophy and ideal of Anarchism as lectured by jolly old Peter Kropotkin, 1898.

The violent history of anarchism, for which it has become so well known, was often the work of agents provocateurs. This still goes on...

The worst part about aliens? They're always spoiling otherwise perfect photographs.

The idea of discourse explained using HBO's wonderful "The Wire."

Kenneth Burke's definition of human, almost 50 years since he wrote it, remains largely unincorporated into our current conceptions of humanity. Too bad.

An absolutely true historical reenactment of the saga of Alexander Hamilton.

If I sketch the hand with a pencil, is it still invisible?

I didn't realize Mr. Rogers was so familiar with the fourth dimension...

I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed, and then I perished...

"Most people spend a good deal of time thinking about nothing. Few, though, take the next obvious step and wonder: why is there something rather than nothing?"

I use my free speech to yell fire in crowded buildings...

"Football allows the intellectual part of my brain to evolve, but it allows the emotional part to remain unchanged."

The national anthem is gleefully sung before the police face off against protesters in a pickup football game at G20 in Toronto.

An equal domination of sport and language...

That crazy day when that Ape used a bone to conquer the world...

We tend to see ourselves as the narrator of a life story, always situated at a crossroads between past and future, swimming in speculation...

Doc Ellis and the LSD No-Hitter

Times are a changin’

Posted by nothingjustis on August 30, 2011 · Leave a Comment

So at the moment, there are 100,000 neurons connected to the robot through Bluetooth. It is living, it’s in an incubator at 37 degrees centigrade. We have to feed it every couple of days with minerals and nutrients. It actually excretes, we have to clear away waste products and whatnot. It is living material, living … Continue reading →

Filed under Links, Nothing Just Is, Science, Society, The ever-blurring divide · Tagged with biological-technological interfacing, brains, cyborgs, future, future of evolution?, Kevin Warwick, robotics, science, technology, The Ever-Blurring Divide

World Wide Mind

Posted by nothingjustis on April 1, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Michael Chorost is a technology theorist with an unusual perspective: his body is the future. In 2001 he went completely deaf and had a computer implanted in his head to let him hear again. This transformative experience inspired his first book, Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human, in which he wrote about … Continue reading →

Filed under Nothing Just Is, Science, Society, The ever-blurring divide · Tagged with books, cochlear implants, Consciousness, cyborgs, evolution of humanity, evolution of technology, future, global mind, internet, linking minds, Michael Chorost, networks, science, SEED Magazine, society, technological-biological interfacing, technology, The Ever-Blurring Divide, World Wide Mind

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