The Spook Has Moved!

my new address is:
http://www.althespook.com/ravings/
please drop by! And did I mention you can finally comment? Really!

A Brief Note About Comments

After some discussion it appears that the Kelgarries Blogswarm won't be able to support comments at this time due to sheer volume of material we need to work with to achieve our goals. Once we migrate to our own servers (scheduled for early 2009) we'll be able to support a full comments implementation.

Thanks for your interest, and enjoy the blog!

How To Subscribe To Reflections As An RSS Feed In Internet Explorer 7

It has come to our attention that many readers of Reflections would like to have the ability to know when new posts are available automatically. Fortunately, the internet and IE7 provide this feature very nicely.

Rather than duplicate postings and eat up space here at Blogspot, we have posted a very simple but quite effective Tutorial on the matter at our sister blog, Tutorials On Using Voltaic Difference Engines. Enjoy!

Reflections On A Pneumatic Arm

It may not look as sleek as the luscious limbs of Chris Bowers, but it has the ability to do in the real world what her appendages can only do with the help of Hollywood special effects, namely function as well if not better than a biological human arm.

It is from a company called Festo, which specializes in a type of automation actuator called Fluidic Muscle. The firm has augmented this breakthrough technology with a second one involving piezo-proportional valves that allow incredibly precise control of the Fluidic Muscles to a level that approximates human fine-controlled movements of the hand and arm. To see what this all adds up to in humanic cyborg terms, please watch this Flash video of the system in action.

Although the company itself sees this technology as applying to the hazardous environment automation sector, we believe here at Reflections that this level of fine control will make its way into replacement prosthetics as well as exoskeleton enhancers very very quickly. (Images courtesy of Festo, Inc.)

Do Humans Dream Of Wooly Biots?

In his breakthrough novel Rendevous With Rama, Sir Arthur C. Clarke invented the word biot. It described robots generated by the automated alien starship called Rama by humanity which, unlike human machinery, were made up entirely of biological chemicals engineered to function in simplistic ways which allowed the robots to do amazingly sophisticated things with a very small amount of physical presence. (For a really amazing fan "trailer" for a Rendezvous With Rama movie, click here.)

As our lifespeeds hurl us into a future where information, technology, biology and humanity are rapidly merging into a single heterogenous whole, the concept of the biot has taken on a whole new meaning to me. We used to speak of "cybernetic humans" like the "bionic man", who were largely living tissue with mechanical enhancements. The reverse was the "cyborg", a largely mechanical form with a small amount of living elements (the "Borg" of Star Trek are based on this concept of course). These were viewed as the only two models available for the merging of man and machine, of biology and information technology. We are rapidly learning otherwise.

Whether it is based on prosthetic replacement limbs that are now truly more powerful and sensitive than the originals they imitate, or whether it is a true three dimensional simulator (no glasses required!) so realistic the viewers dodge oncoming objects by reflex, our ability to not only duplicate the biological world of our bodies but surpass it is no longer science fiction. And we are finding combinations and synergies our limited visions of the past could never encompass.

This blog is dedicated to keeping you, its gentle readers, up to speed on the changes in the zero-point-energy driven spin-wash convergence cycle of modern techno-cyber-life that will toss you and your children into places and cause you to do things of which even now we cannot dream.

Welcome to the future! It arrived yesterday. (Images courtesy of Wikipedia and CYBORG FANTASIES.)