Natural-Born Cyborgs CH3_4

Diving deeper into the book, Clark begins talking in depth about cortexes and inner human organs and muscles. These muscles serving as a basis for many ideas such as human thoughts, communication, and natural processes our bodies experience such as breathing and feeling. Our brain has “grown” as we develop as young children and we begin learning language at a very young age because of image reception and repetition.

Our brain is so powerful to have created “electricity” but at the same time the brain can only access so much of its memory at the same time. Our short-term memory only accesses or “can” access knowledge that is already previously learned. At any instance an image can cause our brain to revisit certain thoughts or memories in our memory. Things such as the pencil and paper we’re created to allow our brain from forgetting information as they allow a constant flow of thought. The human, as they observe a room possibly scan from object to object, stopping briefly to acknowledge certain items such as a bookshelf but are scanning to quickly to realize how many books are on the shelf or what is between the books. It is almost an expectation for a bookshelf to house books but this is what our brain perceives.

Our brains are constantly processing ideas. In the reality of things, people in my vicinity are not in “reality”. Most are oblivious to worlds outside of their own and are unable to acknowledge problems in their world. People on their cell phones while driving are very dangerous because half of their thought is about the conversation and not the road or their surroundings, the percentage of accidents due to cell phone relatedness is higher than most believe.

Our brains created language, which in turn created everything existing in today’s society, besides the chicken and the egg. Communication is traveling in such an expedited fashion that now there are computers with webcams allowing us to operate machinery around the world while sitting at the comfort at our own home, at the desk, with our “desktop” or laptop computer. A few of these examples stated in NBC are: “Sandpit Excavation” “Bird Brains” “Gardeners World” and “Telebotic Tillie”.

Our brains allow us to questionably agree and disagree, which in turn is another learning process; questioning for example our existing technology and governmental laws in turn allows us to tweak and recreate better technology and laws, so to speak.

Diagrams

http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/cdiags.htm

Natural-Born Cyborgs Ch1-2

A project proposal from Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline began years ago with intentions on breaking down the differences of machines and humans and creating the relevance between specific parts and components in each. They eventually came upon a word that summed up a majority of their word and projects which became known as the "cyborg". Many household items began multiple discussions and they began looking further into thermostats and toilets. These everyday items humans necessarily take for granted. These evaluations became more commonly related to our bodies heart rates, bodily works and nervous systems. Systems that inherently are apart and among a much larger scale process that are naturally overlooked and rarely thought about because they usually "work". "Rose" was the first cyborg recorded by Clynes and Kline. The rat that was experimented on was nameless thus taking the name of the creator of the pump Dr. Rose (whom was a researcher for the cure for cancer). Rose was attached to a pump that on a regular basis, would be pumped or shot with a dose of the needed medicine to keep a correct blood pressure for example.

One of the first humans to undergo such an experiment would become Kevin Warwick. Warwick placed a glass chipped tube beneath his skin in his wrist that would act as a censor for opening doors and turning off/on lights in his laboratory. Warwick's work was so successful that he eventually was interested in implanting a 100-spike chip in the same area which would interact with near computers, sending waves back and forth, being able to communicate to a certain extent possibly his human health such as blood pressure, heart beats etc.

This would become very fascinating in that later the book begins to talk about the conscious and unconscious performances our body creates and goes through to survive. Such an example is breathing; our body doesn't stop breathing unless we tell certain muscles and mind controls to stop inhaling and "hold our breath", the body then gasps for air eventually and we exhale for fresh air. Sleeping for instance is our bodies way of telling us we need "rest" so we know if we are tired we simply go to bed, gain rest, and awake re-energized.

It becomes complex in the end as the author begins talking about exploration and cyborg integration to realize possibilities in the future we might overcome. Creating machines that coincide with our bodies that might help us eat less, sleep less, control "less" which could possibly result in better survival for example: in space or another planet. Having our mind as the only limitation and not necessarily our body is a very interesting thought. The virtual and physical divide is quite complicated. Transparent technologies such as: pen, paper for an artist or author, sports equipment for the athlete and musical instruments for the musician; eventually become a second part of the body as we become far more familiar with these equipments. Opaque technologies for example: computers and cars; are in everyday use but these types of items inherently break down some times or crash, resulting in problems for the user, and these problems are much more visible than the void in thought for an author or artist.

"Solder Like a Pimp" part 01

Using diagrams we assembled parts in a breadboard kit in order to test circuits. Once the breadboard was assembled and running we experimented with varying values of resistors and capacitors. Trying atleast 2 different variations these are my 3 variations of outcomes:

I) Resistor 1: 120k ohm   Resistor 2: 33k ohm   Capacitor: 4.7uF
outcome: The L.E.D's blinked about every half second. 2 Blinks per second.

II) Resistor 1: 120k ohm  Resistor 2: 470 ohm   Capacitor: 22uF
outcome: About every second there was a short burst of light in the L.E.D (light emitting diode)

III) Resistor 1: 120k ohm  Resistor 2: 10k ohm  Capacitor: 10uF
outcome: I experienced two short blinks about every second. Short L.E.D bursts

Changing the ohm's of the resistors and capacity of the Capacitor created different timing frequencies. I will be attempting my second testing experience in Part 01with Part 02: Solder Like a Pimp in the actual creation of the circuit.

Hertzian Tales CH1-CH2

When I began reading chapter 1 of Hertizan Tales, most of it seemed to be written in another language and seemed very complex. Most of the text was quoted from other readings, reviews, stories, projects and books. It began to talk about electronics and the perception of electronics in our society. These perceptions were broken into many types and factions including semiotic, material culture, design, and literary perspectives; each having a multitude of information about each. The just was that technologies now days have become so much about the aesthetic qualities rather than the function, and how we as humans strive for both function and aesthetic qualities. Why must we need these technologies to "fit in" with society rather than just performing their intended functions.

Chapter 1 seemed to ramble on about many peoples books and projects so for me it was quite hard to understand what points they were trying to make.

Chapter 2 was quite easier to understand, I guess because I can relate more to the basic points and also relate to the connectivity between we as humans to our technologies.

Our technologies have become more user friendly which was a large point in some of this text (Ch 2.) It began talking about how much cheaper our technologies have become also. For instance, the rich no more can buy outstanding technologies that the middle/low classes cannot also afford in the long run. Computers are now well affordable and attainable by all classes and functions are also the same pattern. The only difference in most cases are the aesthetic designs such as gold platted iphone or diamond encrusted computers. Many designers are looking into the future about materials and functions and are trying to solve these certain problems of class versus functionality versus style. Why must a computer look a certain way? Because without it's aesthetic style, the consumer would simply buy another style to fit their lifestyle. Designers are becoming more interested in new styles of technologies that provoke other senses other than aesthetic qualities toward more functional or involvements. These creators are influenced by the unfamiliar and are interested in turning the familiar to the unfamiliar invoking social in-normal.

"Machine Poem"

I am 1 and 0
How that is I speak
I am of metal compounds
Would you like to meet?

I am many wires
An interface you know
You can Google fires
Or search "Where is Waldo"

I am many pieces
None that you can eat
Tell me what to do
Use me with the feet

I will now say goodbye
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