A new opportunity?

So, I am interested in writing again. I know that I have taken a three year hiatus from blogging. Thats a very long time in computing terms. But the writing bug has struck. What prompted this recent change? Well, I was invited to submit a sample article for the Adam Vs The Man show. And so I did. The funny thing is once I started writing, I had forgotten how cathartic it was and how much I enjoyed it. Now that the rain is falling and the summer is over, what else can I do but stay indoors and type, slowly.

So now I have started up a new blog, Of Technology and Freedom. This blog will probably be my main blog, but I may occasionally post things here related to Asperger's Syndrome. I am not very active in the Aspy community, but perhaps I should be. LOL, people with social disconnectedness getting together and talking about subjects that only they are interested in. Hilarious. Should be interesting.

The Aspergian Singularitarian creates a new blog, Of Freedom and Technology.

The Aspergian Singularitarian creates a new blog, Of Freedom and Technology. Be sure to check it out.

So much in one day...

I first want to start with science and tech. Today PhysOrg has an article, "To Fight Drug Addiction, Researchers Target the Brain with Nanoparticles." (source: http://www.physorg.com/news157053913.html) The short of it is, "Stable biocompatible gold nanorods that deliver short RNA molecules in the brain to "silence" or turn off DARPP-32, a gene that plays a critical role in many kinds of drug addiction, have been developed by University at Buffalo researchers." If it is possile to "silence" a drug addiction gene, couldn't one "amplify" or "turn on" a drug addiction gene? A tyrannical government copuld pump this into the water, or into the food supply and thus turn everyone into drug addicted slaves... Sounds like Sci-Fi, right?

Next, technologyreview.com wrote, "The World's Biggest Laser Powers Up." (source: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22347/) "The National Ignition Facility (NIF), a laser system designed to produce nuclear fusion reactions that release more energy than used to produce them, is now up and running. By 2010 or 2011 the NIF's 192 lasers will be able to deliver 1.8 megajoules of energy in a few billionths of a second to one 2-millimeter sphere filled with hydrogen isotopes. The energy will ignite a fusion reaction and generate at least 10 times the energy delivered by the lasers." It was originally funded to study nuclear weapons. Is it truely benign then? diod they create a better nuke? I hope they will use it as a clean and efficient power source, and not use the research to make a better bomb...

I love new technological advances, standing upon the shoulders of giants, striving ever forward to extropy. So I will not stand by when certain groups stand in the way of that. Take for example the headline, "Top Constitutional Scholar: Secret Bush Memos Reveal Plan For "Massive Military Takeover Of US" (source: http://www.infowars.net/articles/march2009/250309Ratner.htm) This enrages me! The man who swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, plotted its takeover!?! AND HE IS NOT ALONE! Remember, Bush is a puppet, and a willing one, he has handlers, men who push the agendas he implements. Members of Congress and the Senate are partners to this. Beware!

Ok, lets try this again...

Hello again.

I guess New Years resolutions have the best of intentions, but are rarely adhered to. I need to sit down, at least once per day, and do this. Its cathartic. Its hard. But it's good for me. Blogging is really the only opportunity for me to express my true opinion. I can't speak out at work, my friends are close, but not as interested in my specific interests as I am, my family... well, I love them but they really don't get me either... GAH the disconnectedness! I just don't feel connected... Oh well...

OK, so what brought me here was I watched a gut wrenching film by Alex Jones, The Obama Deception, and it rocked my world. I was already aware of The Global Elite made up of The Trilateral Commission, The Council on Foreign Relations, and the Bilderburg Group for a few years now. I have seen them accelerate their plans on global domination by creating a New World Order, but after watching this film, I have come to realize how close we are to a dictatorship, how close we are to loosing everything this country was founded on.

When I watched the film I had to ask myself, "Has Obama repealed the Patriot Act?" Answer: no. In fact he voted to extend it. According to the Washington Post he voted yes to Vote 29: H R 3199: Which reauthorized a slightly modified version of the 2001 USA Patriot Act. I also wondered about his stance on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. I am a firm believer that we need firearms to defend ourselvs from a corrupt government, because without them Tyranny will have free reign. Obama wants to remove that right from us, and he will persuade us to do so. Please do not let him. We need to stand up for what is good, and right.

Now don't start thinking me an Obama Hater/Bush Lover... I rank Bush right up there Bonzo the Chimp. Both are doing their part for The Global Elite. Bush was reviled so that Obama could step in and "save us", but is he really making change? Look at his cabinet appointments and you tell me... New guard or old guard? According to Wikipedia, "Thirty-one of the appointments to the transition team had previously worked in the Clinton administration, including Podesta, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and Biden's Chief of Staff Ron Klain." In fact, Right-Wingers and Neocons Love Obama's Cabinet Appointments. That scares the crap outta me!

More tomorrow! I swear!

A long hiatus... too long

Its been 282 days since my last post. Why has it taken so long? I am not quite sure. I have been extremely busy since I lost my great job working for Children's Medical Services in Miami. First I needed to procure new work. That took 3 months... and finally I have found a home. AgencyNet Interactive, an award winning web 2.0 flash and more development company. They are great! I have been hired as their Network Adminisrator. I hope that I can do as good a job as the previous holder of the position. He did an amazing job with not much time or support. Kudos Chris Fullman!

Anyway, I have been working for AgencyNet for the last 5 months (1 temporary) and I have learned a lot. I have learned that I hate Bugzilla, I love ubuntu, losing my love for Windows, and starting to dislike Cisco (I need to get over that). This job is certainly not the CakeWalk that was CMS. Hard work, and long hours. But that's OK.

Also, I finished my Bachelor's of Science Degree in Information Systems Security from ITT last week! HUZZAH! after off and on for 11 years I have my BS. Finally! Now what to do? Take the next 3 months off? Get certifications? Start my masters in IT?I think that I won't think on it until after the new year.

I have also seen my Daughters 4th birthday this October. She is so precious! Not only do I love her, but I like her too, she is fun to be around! She is smart, knows her letters so well that I swear that she can read! At 4! I hope she can write as well as her mother can.

Well I should get back to work. I guess my New Years resoultion shall be to update this blog. hmmmm....

Wednesday 3/12/08

Hi there, another set of news posts. And classes are starting up again. I just don't know how often I wll update, but I will keep trying.

• Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel - [Craig Venter says he is creating a lifeform that feeds on carbon dioxide to produce "fourth generation" fuels, and may have it working in 18 months. The organism would use CO2 as a feedstock and give off fuel such as methane gas as waste. Venter is also working on organisms that make vaccines for the flu and other illnesses. See Also Venter Takes Step Toward Synthetic Cells] - This gives me hope that people are out there that want to make the world a better place. Thank goodness.
• Plan to teach baby robot to talk - [University of Plymouth roboticists and language development experts plan to work with a humanoid baby robot called iCub to research how parents teach children to speak. Their findings could lead to the development of humanoid robots that learn, think and talk.]
• Quantum corkscrews from twisting electron waves - [Researchers from the RIKEN Frontier Research System have shown that vortices similar to those of "twisted light" can be produced in beams of electrons. Optical vortices can be made by passing a laser beam through a fork-shaped computer-generated hologram. Electron-beam vortices could be produced in a similar fashion, using a thin crystal plate with a dislocation. Such vortices could power nanomotors and nano-engines, or could be used in telecommunications by storing information in the optical vorticity, or the intensity of twisting. The vorticity is robust against perturbations, so this potential future technology could reduce the loss of information during optical communications.]
• St. Jude researchers find key step in programmed cell death - [St. Jude Children's Research Hospital researchers have discovered three molecules that together protect certain cells from undergoing apoptosis--programmed cell death--describing one mechanism for how cells may delay apoptosis. Molecular malfunctions that trigger apoptosis may cause some diseases, including Parkinson's disease.]
• Flexible robotic fin does away with drag - [Researchers have built a robotic fin that uses flexibility to produce constant thrust and eliminate drag while moving, mimicking the energy-efficient movement of a fish's pectoral fins. Fish-like fins could make autonomous underwater vehicles more agile: the bluegill sunfish can hover, rotate, move forwards and come to a stop using pectoral fins alone.]
• Robots enter Japan's daily life - [Japan is perhaps the closest country to a future where humans and intelligent robots routinely live side by side and interact socially: with more than a fifth of the population 65 or older, the country is banking on robots to replenish the work force and care for the elderly. Robots in Japan are serving as receptionists, vacuuming office corridors, and spoon-feeding the elderly. Over 370,000 robots worked at factories across Japan in 2005, about 40 percent of the global total and 32 robots for every 1,000 Japanese manufacturing employees.]
• The Digital Utility - [In a new book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, Nicholas Carr argues that we're moving from the era of the personal computer to an age of utility computing--by which he means the expansion of grid computing, the distribution of computing and storage over the Internet, until it accounts for the bulk of what the human race does digitally.]
• Got Sleep? CDC says 1 out of 10 Americans are sleep deprived! - [A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research study states that 10 percent of adults -- 50 to 70 million adult Americans -- are not getting sufficient rest or sleep every night. Chronic sleep loss and sleep disorders also raise the risk for additional health problems. The National Sleep Foundation reports that adults need seven to nine hours of sleep every night to be adequately rested.] - Ugg, no wonder I am feeling crappy all the time, I get around 5-6 hours a night...
• From TED to BIL - [In a talk at the BIL unconference following TED, entitled "Not the TED Commandments, or How to Be a Successful Heretic," gerontologist Aubrey de Gray offered ten commandments -- rules for successful revolutions in thinking.]
• The World’s Smallest Crime Lab - [George Mason University researchers have built a microwave smaller than an ant that can heat pinhead-size drops of liquid to precise temperatures--critical for the kind of lab-on-a-chip devices investigators could someday use in the field. One big potential payoff: a portable DNA-analysis kit that could use crime-scene evidence, such as a drop of blood, to produce the genetic fingerprint of the culprit.] - And it will just keep getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller....
• Physicists Discover Gold Can Be Magnetic on the Nanoscale - [Georgia Institute of Technology physicists have announced discoveries about gold's nanoscale properties: electric fields can change the shape of gold nanoclusters from pyramidal to flat, gold can be made magnetic, and oxygenated gold nanowires switch from being conductors to insulators when longer than 6 gold atoms in length. This marks the first time on the nanoscale that such a metal-to-insulation transition has been found. The results could result in new methods for controlling the behavior of nanostructures through the application of external electric fields.]
• 'Long-life' genes found in 100-year-old humans - [Albert Einstein College of Medicine researchers found two mutations that make people live longer. Both mutations affect the receptor for insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1). By making the receptor slightly faulty, the mutations may disrupt IGF1 binding and decelerate the process of maturation and aging.]
• Out of the Blue - [Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne computational neuroscientists hope to model a complete rat brain within two years on their IBM Blue Brain supercomputer and download it into a robotic rat to develop like a real rat--one with a "mind of its own." They also want to simulate what that brain experiences, and generate a movie of its reality rooted in the details of its brain. Beyond that, they want to simulate the trillion synapses in the human brain--about 500 petabytes of data--within 10 years.] - This is important! And a very good article.
• Prof posits metananocircuits as electronics' next frontier - [University of Pennsylvania professor Nader Engheta hopes to create electronic components and circuits in an entirely new regime--one where "current" is no longer defined as the movement of electrons and holes, but instead as an electromagnetic wave, leading to a new kind of optical information processing and perhaps a new form of nanoscale computational unit that would outperform conventional silicon electronics. His building blocks are metananocircuitry--composite nanomaterials that exhibit properties that are dictated by their nanoscale structures rather than their chemistry--and dielectric nanoparticles. For example, nanoparticles with positive permittivity could realize optical capacitors, those with negative permittivity, could realize optical inductors and resistors. Combining such components could lead to complex optical nanocircuits.]
• Konarka Announces First-Ever Demonstration of Inkjet Printed Solar Cells - [Konarka Technologies has announced the company conducted the first-ever demonstration of manufacturing organic solar cells by efficient inkjet printing.]
• Levitating joystick improves computer feedback - [Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a computer controller levitated by magnets that provides a more natural feel for physically experiencing virtual objects. The maglev interface gets rid of the mechanical linkages that are a major constraint on most haptic devices and operates in six degrees of freedom.] - Imagine encasing oneself into a magnetically sensitive suit and surrounding yourself with these magnets, one could simulate the entire bodies' range of movements and experience a true haptic interface.
• Greener Green Energy: Today's solar cells give more than they take - [Solar power produces, per unit of energy, only about one-tenth as much carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions (during manufacturing) as does conventional power generation, a new study by Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists shows. These improvements in efficiency mean that today's solar panels can "pay back" in only 1 to 3 years the energy needed to make them, the study concludes. Improvements in manufacturing efficiency could reduce emissions from solar power by another 50 percent within 5 to 7 years, the researchers say.]

Just posts this time...Sigh

• The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They Know - [Some autistics are leading a nascent civil rights movement, fueled by neuropsychological researchers who are taking a fresh look at the nature of autism. The condition, the researchers say, shouldn't be thought of as a disease to be eradicated. The autistic brain may not be defective, but simply different -- an example of the variety of human development. They've found that previous measures of autistic intelligence were severely flawed, that autistic brains are highly efficient in some tasks -- even superior in some intelligence tests.] - This is a very important article and I am glad to see that others are beginning to understand that aspies and auties like myself aren't diseased, were different. A huge distinction! I like how I think! I don't want to be cured!
• The Encyclopedia of Life, No Bookshelf Required - [Scientists are building a Web site called the Encyclopedia of Life, dedicated to documenting all species on Earth. Spearheaded by Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson with $50 million initial funding, the first 30,000 pages will be introduced on Thursday this week. Within a decade, they predict, they will have the other 1.77 million.] - Neat idea! I like online references.
• Future Blogger - [MemeBox has announced the public beta release of Future Blogger, a blogging community dedicated to exploring the future. Visitors can post their thoughts, predictions and scenarios. Community ratings then determine page ranking for posts. The site's Future Scanner also aggregates and organizes information about the future by year and category.]
• The Future of Universal Water - [Futurist Peter von Stackelberg of research and consulting firm Social Technologies has released a report on the future of on providing clean water to the world. Less than 2% of the planet's water store is fresh, and much of that is threatened by pollution, he says. "By 2025, about 3.4 billion people will live in regions that are defined by the UN as water-scarce." He suggests ideas for technological advances in three major areas that will be critical for the hydrological future: desalination of seawater or brackish groundwater, purification of water containing chemical or biological contaminants, and conservation to cut demand.]
• Researchers demonstrate smallest possible carbon nanotube - [Researchers in Japan have synthesized the smallest (0.4 nm diameter) single-walled carbon nanotube by using thermal decomposition of ferrocene molecules inside larger commercial-grade nanotubes.] - What I find amazing is they have actually imaged the darn thing. We are so close to actually "seeing" the atoms themselves, if we haven't already!

• Breakthroughs in nanotechnology on edge of 'knowledge frontier' - [University of Missouri scientist Kattesh Katti has discovered how to make gold nanoparticles using gold salts, soybeans and water, an alternative to production methods using toxic chemicals. The new process could allow medical researchers to expand the use of gold nanoparticles for drug delivery and other purposes.]