Donate an IPod to Your Senator

I was reading a few days back about a hearing on the Broadcast and Audio Flags in the Senate. Some very interesting insight from a pro-DRM Senator who referenced his daughter buying him an iPod and asking questions about what he could access. If all it took was one of them getting an iPod to connect with the common citizen on DRM issues, then IPac's campaign to donate iPods to Senators is something I can get behind.

Of course, I'd like to see them take it a step further and research the Senators' music tastes, and pre-fill the iPod. Maybe include some relevant political fodder as well.

Red Cross probed by Senate; Charter questioned by Congress

I came across this article in USA Today about Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley requesting all sorts of information from the Red Cross about finances, board minutes etc. I can understand that - Congress has full oversight over the Red Cross due to it being the official charity chartered to respond to disasters.

However what really upsets me is statements by two Representatives - Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Republican Jim McCrery of Louisiana saying that the government should reconsider that charter. OK - I understand. These are two elected officials of states that were absolutely devastated. But the Red Cross was way more prepared than most.

As of 4:30pm ET on August 25th, while Katrina was still 25 miles off Ft. Lauderdale just a few hours from landfall, they had 24 shelters opened in 4 counties already housing 334 people with 16 more shelters on standby. Three days later just prior to landfall, (about noon on 8/28), they had 78 shelters open with 58 on standby housing 1084 people. They worked with the Southern Baptists and already had sites set for 25 kitchens that were waiting on standby to feed over 500,000 per day - and requested 10 more. They had deployed 885 volunteers/staff and were recruiting and training 1900 in the next 3 days. That was BEFORE landfall! (Note: I'm pulling these stats of Red Cross Disaster Operations Summary Reports - I looked but the ones I am referencing are not publicly available on the Web.)

After participating in some of the more advanced Red Cross courses including Mass Casualty Disaster (PDF) and, this past weekend, the two-day Collaborating to Ensure Effective Service Delivery, (formerly the Liaison I/II courses if I understand it right), the Red Cross is as prepared as they can be. Every chapter has Disaster Response Plans, the national organization has policies and documents for every role one would be expected to play....I honestly do not believe any other organization could be more prepared for disasters.

Looking back at the 2005 hurricane season, the Red Cross responded to Cindy, Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Rita, Tammy and Wilma - so many people don't realize that the organization is still doing casework on hurricanes from 2004, September 11th in addition to having to recruit, train and dispatch volunteers to all of these on-site locations. It's just enormous. There are hundreds of not-for-profits helping with the aftermath and response. Don't get me wrong - the Red Cross is not the only organization for disaster services and relief. In fact, we have Statements and Memos of Understanding with about 100 national organizations that perform various services. However I don't think any one of those organizations can take up the mantle to do what the Red Cross does for the US.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around my thoughts on the issue but the more I become involved, the more I see just how much the Red Cross does that no one realizes.

Seeking Online File Storage

Not sure if any of you who read my blog would know of a service, but I have to try. As several of you know, I am very hard on my computers - usually laptops. I go through multiple harddrives and since I left MIT which had this excellent, (though laborius to retrieve from), TSM offline backup system, I haven't really been vigilant with my backups.

I am looking for a product that is essentially an online service or Web site that will allow me to synchronize specified Windows XP folders with this online service - perhaps via WebDAV or some other protocol. I want to be able to go to a URL and individually pick and choose files "on my system" to download. Essentially a more seamless CVS system.

Should I just setup a SubVersioN server somewhere and use TortoiseSVN to synchronize?

True Civil Disobedience - Illegal Wiretapping

I came across this bit of news and pictures today detailing how Georgetown Law students got up and turned their backs on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who was attempting to justify the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping activities to the group. Then another group of students dressed in black cowls came in with a banner with the quote Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

The New York Times covered the event as well. It is certainly interesting to see the administration constantly going from place to place frantially justifying their position - the National Press Club, the NSA itself, etc. I don't think they did this much PR since the Social Security proposals. Methinks they doth protest too much - what are they hiding?

Civil Unions for State / Marriage for the Church

I was watching a discussion of gay marriage on the WTA Talk list and decided to add some input of my own. I've never really gone beyond saying I support gay marriage but there's more to it. Though, keep in mind this has a bit of a transhumanist bent:

First off there's the matter of semantics. I honestly believe that "marriage" should be returned to the church and that government entities should use "Civil Unions" to distinguish the rights and responsibilities given to couples by law. That way, "gay marriage" becomes an issue of the church and religion. If a gay couple wants to get "married" in the church then focus and pressure needs to be put on the religious body governing the church. However civil unions are merely a set of rights and responsibilities and should be gender-blind.

Anyway, who is to say that men will never be able to carry a child to term? Lesbian couples can have a baby together through artificial insemination - the one carrying the child is implanted with a fertilized egg of the other partner. Who is to say we can't condition the male body to carry an embryo in his abdomen until term at which point he has a C-Section?

Of course, who knows - some day we may be able to create sperm and eggs on our own, implanted with the appropriate genetic code from both couples desiring to have a baby - ie two men can have a baby that is both biologically theirs.

I think it's often overlooked that, until the industrial revolution and even shortly after it began, the reason for procreation was a matter of survival: You needed additional bodies to help run the farm or to get a job to support the family. In today's marketplace, a single person can get by perfectly on their own without familial infrastructure.

Nowadays, having children in many places around the US is simply a means for a couple to further experience and solidify their love and relationship - by creating and raising a biological joining of the two of them.

So the focus changes from raising a child to ensure the family's survival to making the choice to raise and mentor a new life in the world.

I find this amusing to read, being the father of an 18mo old as it sounds so cold and impersonal. But for the most part the above description describes why my wife and I chose to have a baby together.

WTA Executive Director Dr. James Hughes pointed out the similarities to my thoughts in a 2003 piece he authored.

I discussed my thoughts a bit when gay marriage was becoming such a large issue in Massachusetts but I believe it's a bit more complicated than my "solution". I haven't really researched it myself but I believe the term marriage appears quite a lot in government policy to the point where some scrubbing would need to happen in order for my ideas to take place. But I truly believe we need to further separate church and state and remove this religious definition of marriage with a more secular, public policy law regarding civil unions. Religion has no right to be the basis for determining who does and does not have rights in our country.

BrainStream: Portable Gesture Recognition Primitive Sensor Cloaking

Though I oft begrudge pulling my slothic body away from my Net Addiction to walk the dog, (gods forbid that I get fresh air or do something that contributes to the household for a change), it's an exercise that provides me with enough stimuli to keep my normally racing brain busy allowing me to brain storm. Similar to the massive amounts of multitasking I do on the computer except it involves walking, feeling the air, smelling the smells, listening to a cacaphony of noise etc instead of flitting between virtual Windows.

Before I get to my BrainStream of the evening, I wanted to note something my brother Nate, (), was thinking about. Until he truly starts posting to his own LiveJournal, I want to store his ideas somewhere. He was discussing design of future vehicles. Not sure if he was referring to automobiles, airplanes or spacecraft as it was a few days ago. But he was pondering a day when transmitters and microprocessors were so small and inexpensive, a vehicle could be absolutely covered with them and instead of absorbing or tricking radar, simply retransmit the signal right through itself. and back to the sender once it had bounced back to them.

Taking that a step further, I could see hundreds of microcameras being mounted on a vehicle while at the same time, the external body of the vehicle is one giant computer monitor. The image on the other side of the vehicle is displayed on the opposite side of said vehicle as if it were not there. Difficult to do with tire and the undercarriage though perhaps a bit easier to handle the windows and windshield.

Anyway, back to my idea. I had my little light bulb earlier today while walking the dog. But while completing the final jaunt for the night, I started thinking about holography and the Star Wars scene where R2D2 projects a 3D image of Princess Leia giving a message. I still think holography of that sort is a ways off. We have seen people display similar images on a screen of moving fog but unless scientists get much better control over light in a space, (I don't know- perhaps projecting dust or some sort of matter in the shape of the holograph and the light around it helps make the 3D effect or something), it'll be a long time before we see truly realistic, interactive holograms. Damn - and I wanted to play a magic user and cast Major Image and other Illusory spells.

However with all my ramblings on Augmented Reality, I think that technology is the median between normal-space and holography. As HMDs and wearable HUDs get more and more simple, non-intrusive and inexpensive, using wearable computers combined with these devices along with mounted location-aware hardware one could completely create the fact of an interactive, quite realistic hologram.

I was thinking how much of a PITA hand-mounted keyboards or even dealing with voice/subvocal recognition to navigate a GUI would be. Then I remembered all the research I did into current efforts of "gesture recognition" - that is, detecting hand/body movement and causing a GUI to react as a result. So on a screen in front of you, you would see a series of windows. Hold up our hands and make a grabing movement. The "hand" cursor on the screen would close on the window and allow you to move it where you wish. Hold up a single finger and point in the general direction of the scroll bar, crook your finger and make a scrolling motion - voila, you're moving down the screen.

My idea would become a part of my previously mentioned wearable computing environment - a multi-beam laser scanner mounted on the HMD, (along with the GPS device), that would cascade several hundred to a tousand beams of light parallel to the front of your body. Your hands would then become the input device and you can either bring up a keyboard to type on or simply use your hands to navigate windows combined with your voice as input....or even alternate GUI navigation features. Activating the device would take a voice command or button somewhere on your wearable but once activated, it immediately calibrates and allows you full control.

Examples of gesture recognition navigation of a GUI environment can be seen in the movie "Minority Report" as well as the television show "Earth: Final Conflict" where the technology was used to pilot the Taelon shuttles.

ZORK: Dubya the Grue

Probably one of the most amusing bit of political satire in a while. The basic ZORK-style truly brings out Bush's simplicity and single-mindedness. Makes me want to go play it all over again.

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> INVADE AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan
You have invaded the nation of Afghanistan, bombing the Taliban nearly out of existence.

Osama Bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is here.

> INVADE IRAQ
(Leaving Afghanistan first.)
You are not able to do that, yet.

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> FUCK
Such language in a high-class establishment like this!

> HYPE THREAT
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

> MONGER FEAR
"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud ..."

> MUDDY WATER
"We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America ..."

> PUNISH CRITICS
"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction ... "

> RAILROAD CONGRESS
You schedule a vote on the Iraq invasion for just before the 2002 midterm elections. As usual, spineless democrats roll over like an SUV taking a sharp corner.

Your plan to invade Iraq now has the backing of the American people and Congress.

> INVADE IRAQ
Baghdad
You enter the Iraqi capital of Bagdad, having toppled the government and captured the nation's key cities in only 21 days. You can't seem to find the promised throngs of citizens greeting you as liberators, but the footage of the Saddam statue being pulled down looks great on Fox!

ClaimID - another social personality / online information manager?

Came across ClaimID via some chatter in the microformats irc channel on Freenode. Did some searching and found out it's a new venture involving Fred Stutzman of iBiblio. Here's what he says:

claimID is a service that lets people track, classify, annotate, prioritize and share the information that is about them online. We've all met someone who is annoyed, uncomfortable, or even generally nonplussed with the way their identity is represented in search. Search engines are good at finding exactly what people search for; the only problem is our identity is anything but exact. What if a person searches for you and doesn't use the name you publish under, or they don't know your maiden name? And what if there is actually really great stuff about you on the web that doesn't have your name attached to it (like a news story about a project you worked on)?

Sounds intriguing - they're now taking emails for requesting beta access. I wonder if they can distinguish themselves from the grand fields of personal information management and social networks.

Looking forward to OutputThis.org service

I think I'm looking forward to the OutputThis.org service though I know very little about what it is or will do. I'm hoping it will replace my LJ-Crosspost plugin that posts whatever I enter on my main, MovableType-powered site onto my LiveJournal account. I'm also hoping it will allow me to crosspost to my Yahoo! 360 account, MySpace, and other social networks and services I am a member of.

Unlike crazy, over-techie folk like me, I cannot guarantee people I know will have an account on every social network I am on so it only makes sense such crossposting should be possible. But the key is going to be smart publishing - so if I say "this blog" then I want it replaced on all the other sites with BrainStream.com so people on other services know what I am referring to. If I reference a previous post, then on each service, I want it to link to the previous post from that service and not back to BrainStream.com. This seamlessness is going to be important. Or if I reference a person and link to them, I want a link to appear to their account on the appropriate service, (i.e. linking to a LiveJournal.com URL or, on LiveJournal, using their <lj user=""> tag).

But I also see an even better use for OutputThis.org and I hope it's being considered - though I didn't read anything about it. I'd be willing to pay for such a service. Basically, I want a tool that stores all the personal information that can be shared across all social networks: Ryze, LinkedIn, Planzo, Orkut, Friendster, Tribe.Net, MySpace, LiveJournal, Yahoo! 360 etc. This includes mostly personal profile type information - name, contact information, interests, favorite music, movies, television shows, books, insert-yours-here, as well as relationship status and information and resume details.

It should would make it a heck of a lot easier to keep information on the Web more updated. I'm continually thinking about metadata, (data about data), so it bums me out that some of these services don't semantically contextualize every bit of information I enter. I would love for all these services to start using microformats. One service, for instance, lets you enter what schools you attended however if it's not a unique school name then it will list all those schools around the country with that name. Each school should be a unique "item" with it's city, state, and any other information making it unique to itself.

I'd also want to syncronize my friends/buddies/contacts. If I list a person on one service, then check all the services for the same person and match by email address or other unique information. Something like this may need human interaction to approve or reject potential matches but it sure beats manually searching all these services.

Anyone know much more about OutputThis.org?

BrainStream Site Updates

For the first time in ages, I've finally started updating this Web site. My main problem was that I was and am still getting an incredible amount of comment spam - only a few slipped through filters but most, (read: over one thousand), were set to moderation. So I've set this blog so you must "sign up" to comment.

Currently it works with TypeKey-only but I've already installed a plugin that allows both TypeKey and OpenID which would allow you to use a LiveJournal, WordPress or other account login to verify yourself. That should be setup soon. However, if you already have a LiveJournal account, I crosspost everything on here to my "LJ" so you're welcome to comment there.

I'm also playing around with microformats - a way of taking standard XML or RDF metadata schemas and implementing them in standard HTML. In more layman's terms, there are open standards that allow you to store one's address and contact information, (vCard), and all your various calendar information, (vCalendar), that you can now include inline in your HTML. This is most excellent because it means you don't have to download a vCard or vCalendar file to get such information - it's embedded in what you are reading. I've also started using the XHTML Friends Network or XFN which lets me denote that a Web site I link to is owned and run by a friend and how I know them.

It may not make much sense to some of you however this is a small part of the Semantic Web or this "Web 2.0" buzzword everyone is using - by further contextualizing your information with more than what's visible to the naked eye, you are making it more easier for computers, software agents, programs etc to find and understand the information you are posting.

At some point, I will update my resume, contact information, bio, and even the design of the site as the "celestial" theme is so Y2K. It's still an important part of me but I have the same look-and-feel in my home office. Better to make my Web design a little more flexible and clean and save the celestial relaxation for my personal self. Besides, Kirky designed and implemented my office and I love it.

Are you adding any sort of new features to your site that I should consider? Let me know.

Thanks for reading.

New Phrase: "Permanent percutaneous implant"

I learned a new phrase today from Eugen Leitl on the WTA-talk list: "Permanent percutaneous implant" which apparently refers to "crossing the skin barrier, in contact with both the outside environment and biological environment". A Google search ellicits about a hundred results includeing everything from bypassing the esophagus with a tube directly to the abdomen for feeding someone, various prosthesis, "bone anchored" hearing aids, insulin pumps etc.

Anyway, the reason this is of interest to me is because these are the cyborgian add-ons people are talking about when they discuss digital implants - futuristic merging of human and machine to make our species "more efficient" etc. I think wearable computing is going to come before these implants become more prevalent as a sort of bridge but that doesn't mean there is no research being conducted with them.

Clumsy With Socks

I feel like such a clumsy tool today. I was going to give the dog her last walk outside and I had to run upstairs to grab some socks first. Will had been playing in the water so I had taken off both our socks earlier as mine had collateral wetness. On the way down, in my usual clumping style, I actually slipped and bounced down the stairs.

I have this nice, blossoming bruise under my forearm, another on my left buttock, my right elbow, swollen heels where my feet failed to stop the inertia of my rather large mass, and something aching in my upper left back.I am obviously incredibly lucky that it wasn't a lot worse - I don't remember hitting my head at all though I was asking why my ears felt like I was in an airplane at 37,000 feet.

I'm slightly achy this morning but my pride is more hurt than anything. Kirky, (), ended up walking Sierra for me and I begrudgingly, (that's a first), retired to the couch.

What Wicked, Wild, Weather We're With

Unbelievable. Yesterday's high temperature in Salem, MA was 57 degrees out. It is currently 12 degrees. I feel real bad for all the squirrels who came out the last week due to the mid-fifty degree weather to check things out. I hope they were able to get snug back up again. What is going on with our environment in the past year!?

Structured Blogging still in infancy

I'm not terribly impressed with Structured Blogging thus far - I'm not one to ridgidly structure the text of my blog posts, though I'd happily semantically markup my content. The MovableType plugin is a bit too strict. Maybe I'm using it wrong but I'd like to make an entry and then use the pulldowns to add an event, review, list, showcase, audio, image or video - in some cases, in the same post.

Perhaps once they're out of Beta we'll see some JavaScripty-AJAXian magic to accomplish this. You can't force bloggers to stick to your formatting. Granted, you can use creative CSS-positioning to make it look however you want, but one of the whole reasons people use MovableType to begin with - so they don't have to deal with manual formatting and markup. Perhaps it would be worth it to develop some CSS templates with positioning to manage more inline contextual information sans any rigid formatting?

They're off to a damn good start and are headed in the right direction - but it will be a bit before the mainstream blogging community will adopt what they're working on. I look forward to what comes next.

Regional Training for Bird Flu Outbreak

Chopper Crash: All Clear

My sister-in-law got a call from my brother. The chopper, [MovableType | LiveJournal],was not in his unit nor were anyone in his unit lost. All is well - for now. Thanks for all who sent well-wishes.

BrainStream Followup: SkyScout pricing etc

Since last night's post, [MovableType | LiveJournal], I did some poking around and the Celestron Sky Scout is currently available on Amazon for $400. They got it up fast - apparently it was added January 4th.

Additional details include:

• It's 7.4 x 2.5 x 4.0 inches (W X H X D)
• Weighs 16oz
• Accepts SD cards
• Box includes USB cable, and one pair of earbud-style headphones
• Will last for 10hrs on batteries.

Nifty. I started tracking the Sales Rank on TicTap to see how well it does.

Idea Roundup #1

A result of my last few posts, I'm going to start posting "idea roundups" on a regular basis. I can save them in draft form and when I'm done for a bit, I will publish them. This is more about me keeping track of my thoughts and brainstorms rather than additional content to readers.

As such, I will post a disclaimer:

1. The ideas on this page are not complete. I wanted to write them down so I could keep track of them and eventually expand them into my full brainstream. See this post as an example.
2. I am fully aware that, in some cases, major parts of my ideas will already exist. I am not claiming to be the first to come up with these ideas and in my expanded version, will most likely reference pre-existing efforts.
3. Anyone can take my idea and run with it. I am big on thought but lacking follow-through. All I ask is that you credit me as per my Creative Commons license and, if possible, invite me to participate or at least observe the project.
4. Please feel free to post your thoughts and ideas alongside mine. I really encourage you all to join in - it's a lot of fun!

Idea Roundup #1

1. Google Sky - An add-on to Google Earth. It will allow for graphic displays of the weather from the sky if you were looking at the horizon - kind of like when news stations pull you under the clouds to see it actually snowing. It would also contain or allow for airline tracking, visual representation of the jetstream etc. As per a previous post, you could also see stars, constellations and other objects in the night sky.
2. Google Mars - As we get more and more data and pictures from the "Red Planet", begin turning them into a full graphical rendering of Mars for Google Earth-like exploration.
3. Google Universe/Space - An Add-On of sorts to Google Earth, (or perhaps the eventual parent application), this contains all the stars, constellations, comets, meteor showers, sattelite positions, and renderings of other celestial phenomena. It could contain a link to Google Moon as well as Google Mars.
4. Pooper Scooper Attachment - Not a tech application but an actual product. As someone who walks dogs, often when really tired or in inclimate weather with heavy gloves on or holding an umbrella, picking up droppings bites - I usually use a plastic grocery bag and dispose of it. One idea is for an add-on to those retractable leashes - it resembles the lower-half of a pelican beak. The tip is a bit of a shovel and you easily feed in plastic grocery bags to represent the pelican gullet. Then you click the "stop" on the lead, bend over, scoop with the shovel-tip, tilt it back and it goes into the bag. Pull the bag downwards out of the "pelican beak" and it ties itself into a not.
5. One-Handed Automatic Pooper Scooper -The second is a bit more complex and futuristic. Somethimes bending over due to an ailing back, old age, or hyper dog is impossible. I see the development of a metal "stick" about 3-5in in length with a button. Press the button and it telescopes downward with a claw of sorts to grab various droppings. You can do this as many times as you want. The waste is pulled inside the tube and deposited into a bag which you can later pull out and throw away. But the key with both scoopers is that it uses or "recycles" plastic bags.
6. Small, wireless, battery-powered, ink-jet printers - Being overweight and asthmatic, it's a PITA to go up two flights of stairs to the printer every time I print something. Most of my ideas come out of me being lazy anyway. I can't bring my 1.5ft by 1ft laser printer downstairs - no room. So why not a small, rechargable battery powered ink jet that you can connect a wireless card to....easily mountable on a wall through suction cups, a narrow shelf or some other non-intrusive means. When cheap enough, (way in the future), these could be a feature of several rooms in a home so one can print anywhere one would want.
7. RFID Smart Shower/Bath - When we first moved into our house, I thought it was cute that our cat would meow to be fed via water trickled from the bath faucett. What a pain! Now she wants it multiple times a day and spends most of her time yowling for more. It got me thinking about the RFID "smart" cat and dog doors people hacked together in the past. Why not have a small computer that stores various water preferences via RFID and learns from adjustments? For starters, if my cat hops up on the edge, it would trickle a little water. When she finally leaves, it fully shuts off. No human standing there or leaving the water on wasting some until we come back. This could be expanded in the future to humans via biometrics. I walk into the bathroom and run my hand across the shower sensor and it starts it running getting it to a certain temperature and indicating it's ready. A computer can do it a lot faster and more exact than my fat fingers so I'd save water. Plus if I have to adjust the temperature it can learn my eventual optimum preference. Perhaps the shower would be voice-activated at some point and, feeding into the house sensors determine my body temperature, the bedroom temperature and see how hot I make the shower. Then it can know that days with those conditions, an alternate temperature may be a better place to start.

12 dead in BLACKHAWK crash

Oh CRAP.....this sucks. Dammit, dammit. Thanks, Dad, () for sending this to me ASAP.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A Black Hawk helicopter believed to be carrying 12 people has crashed in northern Iraq, and all aboard were killed, the U.S. military said Sunday. The helicopter crashed just before midnight Saturday about seven miles east of Tal Afar, the military said. Records indicated that it was carrying eight passengers and a crew of four, it said.

Can't the Red Cross or something fo a "Welfare Check" so I can find out of Jon, () is OK?

I don't make the ideas - I just have 'em

Chris Schmidt, (), pointed out today, (I'm pretty sure tongue-in-cheek), that I'm all about the ideas but always look to someone else to implement them. Guilty as charged. I always have my hands in so many pots, I never seem to make the time to learn the technologies to put my ideas to reality. I'm a technologist - I've never been a math person and no matter how much I try, I can't seem to manage to learn a programming language. I was a master of Apple BASIC back in the 80s and I seem to do OK with markup languages from HTML to RDF to XML but I can't seem to figure out Perl, PHP or Python - the scripts I really need to implement most of my ideas.

Today I did a little searching for a place I could take online courses. Ziff-Davis hit the nail on the head in the late 90s with ZDU, (Ziff-Davis University) but I couldn't seem to find anything similar. Anyone have any leads?

In the meantime, I will continue to dream my big dreams and perhaps I'll come across someone who wants to implement one of my ideas. While I'm not a programmer, I'm a pretty quick learner and already have a fairly strong grasp of what is and is not possible.

Because of the "missed opportunity" of sorts in my previous post, I will also start taking more time to writeup my ideas no matter how silly, ludicious, or downright stupid. I need them on paper and out of my brain - at least until it's possible to do a "Full Brain Backup".

That's an idea for another day.

BrainStream: Portable Celestial Augmented Reality

Dammit, dammit, dammit. I need to get better at writing down what's in my head.

When I go out to walk the dogs, am driving somewhere, trying to get off to sleep, I'm usually inside my head brainstorming. I'm pretty good with mind visualization and I swear I could live in there. It's be better than TV if I could connect it to my.....what is it.....visual and aural cortex?

Anyway, in the past year on one of my walks, I spent a lot of time looking at the stars. It was definitely late spring or summer and quite nice out. I was looking up and trying to identify constellations and stars with little success. Being a Scifi geek and always pondering the stars, space and other "star systems" and being a technologist, futurist and pseudo-transhumanist, I'm always thinking of ways to make life easier. The spiritual side of me is constantly fascinated by coorespondences in more Earth and astrological-based religiousness.

So I started dreaming.

We have plenty of handheld and mobile technology nowadays. MIT and other educational institutions are revolutionizing wearable computing. GPS and geolocation applications are all the rage and augmented reality is quite the growing area of study Here's my idea:

First you need the hardware system. Take a portable, handheld or wearble computer - it needs to have a decent graphics card and be capable of handling some pretty quick rendering. Input today would be via voice recognition or single-handed keyboard. Video output would be via some sort of HUD-capable glasses like the Eyetap or other existing peripherals. On the glasses would be a GPS receiver capable of realizing the direction it's facing, altitude and, obviously, longitude and latitude. For the most part, all of this exists. It may not be cheap but it's out there.

Then the application. Actually, I have several applications in mind for this platform but this particular one is Astronomy-related. On the computer is a database containing location information for as many stars, planets, planetoids, moons, sattelites and other celestial objects we know and love. When fed GPS, altitude and directional information, it will overlay labels and trace lines based on the user's preference for level of detail. These labels would appear next to stars and other astronomical objects and the lines would be in the shapes of constellations - augmenting reality.

I got this idea from the "Your Sky" application by Autodesk founder and AutoCAD co-founder John Walker. It does exactally what I described above except on one's laptop and you have to manually feed it location information. Plus it renders a fairly simple graphical representation of the sky and though it has a "from the horizon" view, it's pretty limited. Still - I actually tried to take it outside, stick it on the roof of my car and stargaze. Didn't work.

Anyway, the keyboard would only be needed to set preferences and launch the program. Other than that, you just need to have the glasses on and you can be barefoot, sitting on the grass with your hands planted on the ground, staring up at the sky - the ultimate stargazing experience.

I've mentioned something similar to this either on mailing lists, IM chats, or IRC discussions. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find anything on Google and since it didn't ever make it to the blog, I can't say I had the idea before the Celestron SkyScout was announced at the CES show this past week. It's handheld, has location-awareness via GPS and other factors, and audio capabilities. You point it at a celestial object and it will give you a text readout on what it is as well as, I'm guessing, audio readout of the text. With any luck it has a headphone jack port as well. You can also use the item to tell you where an object is and even use a USB port to connect online, download software updates and information about new objects like the space shuttle or a comet passing through.

Hey! It's still behind what is capable today! I see no HUD and no real graphical display - maybe I'm still ahead of the curve. Still - it's DAMN cool.

Still, the full extent of my proposed system will most likely be the grandchild of today's emerging mobile, GPS/RFID location-based applications but it's neat to see a lot of the idea behind this brainstorm start taking shape. Projects like AJAX and mod_pubsub allow for the constantly-updating display of Web-based data streams so I could drive past something in my laptop on wireless with a GPS and be told various info about the objects I am going past. As the Semantic Web continues it's climb, more and more information around the world will be geotagged and slapped together with all sorts of valuable metadata.

Soon, this will become more and more ubiquitious on mobile devices and as I'm walking past a grocery store, I'll be told of the specials for the day. Standing in front of a historical plaque, I will be given a full history of the object being detailed including pictures and possibly even audio and video. If I'm looking for a public bathroom or Starbucks, I can have my device direct me there.

That's where the HUD glasses come in - we can't type, read, and walk at the same time. Not without walking into people, objects or - worse - traffic. Having a Heads-Up Display as opposed to screen-goggles will augment reality instead of showing me something completely virtual so while I'm being fed data and information about my surroundings, I can still see where the hell I am going.

If I really wanted to go high-tech with the input, it would be equipped to handle subvocal recogniton - that is, the ability to measure vibrations in your vocal chords so even though you're not saying anything that can be heard, the vibrations can be converted to signals that can be translated into speech. Silent voice-recognition. NASA is already doing some incredible research on subvocalization - check out page 12 of this 2005-2006 Intelligence Report from the space administration's Intelligent Systems Division.

In addition to that, the HUD would have a built-in HD camera, (or whatever the high-resolution video is far into the future), allowing me to zoom in on particular objects or just, in the case of my celestial application, let me see a close-up picture of the star or part of the moon I am looking at.

The applications for such a platform are almost inconceivable. RPGs and FPSs can be taken outdoors and people can be IN them. No more complex VR environment with force-feedback, omni-directional treadmills, and gesture recognition. You could walk with your own two feet, built-in sensors connected to your wearable would track limb movement and potentially provide appropriate simulated stimulus while your HUD would track the environment around you and your system would render and project the people, monsters or objects you are interacting with. Stick on the ground? Augmented reality can project it as a +2 Bastard Sword with a giant encrusted ruby in the hilt.

Obviously such a system would have incredible military applications and, per usual, the military industrial complex will most likely have been the ones providing the funding for the research that produced both the applications, hardware, smart clothing and peripherals.

Ah, the future. One can hardly wait.

Grammar Question: Ampersands and Abbreviations

OK all your"beta readers" and editors - I'm helping Kirky, (), edit something she's writing for work and I wanted to check two issues I often find myself running into.

The first is nested "ands". If I have a sentence that reads:

"He wanted to make sure it included data collection and aggregation, integrity checks, and audit trails."

Is that correct as it is? I tend to hate nested "ands" and would edit the sentence to read:

"He wanted to make sure it included data collection & aggregation, integrity checks, and audit trails."

Which is right?

The second is abbreviations. Which is correct?

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Ontology Language (OWL).

or

The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Ontology Language (OWL).

Or am I wrong on both counts? I don't yet have a copy of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" and I don't feel like trekking up two flights of stairs to find my Chicago Manual of Style. Besides, there's more of a brain trust of grammatical knowledge in my readership.

MS & Yahoo Sittin' in a Tree?

Just saw this post on Dave Farber's list "Interesting People" about how Microsoft offered $80 billion over the weekend for Yahoo!. I wondered if MS was simply going to fade away in the "Web 2.0" war between Google and Yahoo! . Hot damn what a rumor.