oh look, it hasn't accomplished anything since we last looked
yep. the honours project is still coming along incredibly slowly and consuming all my time. plus now i get to want to kill myself again for being such a fuckup. i'm not saying it for attention or advice, either, it's just a half-assed explanation of what the fuck i've been doing with my time.
in the mean time, here's an essay i wrote, the one i promised to upload a while ago. the marks haven't come back to me yet, i doubt they'll be good; the thing's pretty rambly, and it has screwy titling, but it might prove interesting if you or anyone you know wants a quick introduction to grinding as distinct from transhumanism proper.
feedback welcome, but i won't have time to do a second draft. oh, and i censored my RL full name, matriculation number and academic email, on accounta separation of facets.
L
52 comments:
Saem shi~ , bro...
>and academic email
>a.mason.06
lold
This is not exactly the typical computer-science honors project, is it? :-) It's not even a typical essay about transhumanism. "I actually implanted functional electronics in my body and inspired other people to do the same thing." (that's my paraphrase, not a direct quote, for anyone too lazy to read the real thing)
I am reminded, ultra-distantly, of Technical Report 96/264 from the Computer Science Department of Monash University, "On the Simulation of Postmodernism and Mental Debility using Recursive Transition Networks", the technical report which launched the much-celebrated Postmodernism Server. The seemingly harmless shell of a humble computer-science department has once again turned out to shelter and incubate something truly subversive.
But I do have a practical question. Is it really a new sense if you don't have new nerves? At some level, these can't be new sensations, they're familiar sensations in new patterns and stimulated under new conditions.
We all know who you are Alicia. And we all know what you look like. We know what you study and where you study it. We know about your illness and psychological problems. We know more about you, than most of the guys you meet on a regular basis in your university and that do not read this blog. Actually you should change your blags name to: Sapiens in the Spotlight. But still, you can't change that anymore, so stop worrying about it and keep going. Its not that anybody here plans on killing you. Maybe its just the guys who want to marry you, that will show up infront of your new apartement soon.
Okay, that conversation turned maximum creepy-level way faster than I anticipated, but looking back, maybe I should have seen that one coming. I'd appreciate it if we didn't harass Lepht and respect its decision to keep its identity as far away from the blog as possible. I hate going back and deleting things, but I guess it's for the better, so I'll delete my message and reproduce the non-creepy bits here:
Mitchell:
Of course there are no new nerves, but if you were to attach an eye that could see through walls to the same nerves, and the brain would learn to interpret the data correctly, that would arguably be a new sense, right? This goes by analogy. Of course, it's just nerves tingling, but that's what all sensory organs do. The important part is that the data is interpreted as a new sense, that this is actually new data coming into the brain.
(Sorry if I'm being bitchy, I can't tell right now [EDIT: I was.]. I've switched over to the Everyman-3 sleep cycle, and am a bit out of it. I recommend trying it to everyone. All of humanity should do that, monophasic sleep is incredibly wasteful and inefficient.)
Hi! Um, please don't kill yourself... I just found out about you and this page and I'd hate it, if our "acquaintance"* would end so shortly.
You're young, intelligent and I have the feeling you will accomplish great things in the future. Also, consider what you would do to your "desert mouse" ;-) (yeah i've read dune).
Came here, because somebody on a Deus Ex forum posted a link to a video of the speech you gave at a German University, which was very interesting. I was wondering: are you a gamer and what do you think of the Deus Ex games?
Kind regards, Caveman (Cologne Germany)
*"acquantance" doesn't really work since you don't know me. Any suggestions for a better term?
Caveman:
If I might chime in: I think the speech you're referring to was the "Cybernetics for the masses" talk at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress, 27C3 for short. It wasn't as such a university lecture, but a talk on (correct me if I'm wrong) Europe's biggest hacker convention.
Also, I don't think Lepht will be killing itself anytime soon, no worries. The world has too much to give to it, and vice versa.
@Max
Thanks for clearing that up! It was indeed the "Cybernetics for the masses" speech. Even though I would never do to myself the things Lepht does, I find it very fascinating and intriguing to watch a pioneer at work. I once read "A short history of nearly everything" by Bill Bryson and there was a part about a scientist (I don't remember the name) who wanted to find out the taste of every element or chemical or whatever. He died of course because he eventually swallowed something toxic, but he did some great things for science out of curiosity with a total disregard for his own safety. Again, I wouldn't do it, but it's inspiring to see someone do it.
On a more personal note my manly "protective instinct" is totally responding to Lepht's self-loathing and insecurities. So I seem to be fascinated by it on so many levels. Guess it has a new fan... :-D
Kind regards, Caveman (Cologne, Germany)
That's some creepy shit Anon!
I just wanted to point out, that for somebody who claims to be interested in "security" Lephts style of blogging is kinda naive. On the other hand I pesonally don't think that knowing about where somebody studies or what he/she/it studies does any harm. Blogging about your health and psychological issues is something you have to deal with yourself. I think the point where it gets creepy is where all the information comes together.
I'd speculate that Lepht's attempts at anonymity are more of a literary device than a security measure.
To be honest I don't see much point in worrying about the security issues here, especially with regards to stalkers.
Who would go to Aberdeen, even to stalk Lepht? I mean, it's not so much of a commute for me but I still think it's a bit cold for masturbating outside.
Hakuna matata.
Oh, and good luck.
Protip: Don't kill yourself. Thats one less cyberpunk/transhumanist/biohacker in the world. You've got a responsibility to continue being cool.
Your essay would be a good start to publish.biohack.me. Do you mind if I post it in full with credit?
Saw your talks and you seemed far too familiar to me. We are doing similar stuff at Transhuman X and the Extreme Futurist Festival. Let's make contact. My other sites are at http://machinekunt.com and http://experimenthaywire.com. You can email me at extremefuturistfest@gmail.com. Let's be friends.
Hi Lepht, Nice blog! How to add the Glitter Effect Mouse Pointer to your Blog
I'm having a hard time imagining Lepht having fun with glitter
I take it you haven't heard yet that Lepht is now redesigning the blog in a pink color scheme, with ponies and rainbows all around. Also, she'll be switching over to myspace.
LOL!
visit me plz
I didn't bother reading the essay, but I must note that it has a pleasant typeface. Well done sir.
I didn't bother reading the essay, but I must note that it has a pleasant typeface. Well done sir.
Heya.
Don't know if you'd be interested in contributing to this:
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cfp-biopunks-open-hardware-and
Damn. Always thought reading blogs was silly. Then found this perchance, found it intriguing and been waiting for an update for over a month now. Figures, the only blog I want to read is the one that doesn't get updated :-S Oh well, as long as Lepth didn't off itself, I can cope ;-)
I'm with the previous anon. Waiting with bated breath.
Do you still go on 4chan?
hi lepht. if you havent seen it already, there's a 1989 japanese movie called 'Tetsuo: The Iron Man' that i think you'd dig.
It has been a while since I have seen you active online. I hope everything is well with you. Continue bringing us more biohacks :D. Thanks for your work Lepht.
You are amazing. Seriously.
Interesting paper. I have a coment for improvement of your essay skills, but first I would like to mention an idea that occurred to me while I was reading. You entioned the charging pillow you are using to charge your haptic devices. This is not the ideal solution. Preferably the perfected cyborg (which is the term I prefer for myself) is entierly self contained. The thought that occurred to me was a fancy, but prolly a practicle fancy. It was a power source implant. Specifically I imagined a golden arm band on my right forearm jus below the elbow, but ..something of the sort is where I would want to go. As a transhumanist and cyborg (I would have died without a shunt and an implant device) I want this stuff to lead to a self sufficient system. Some form of implant powering system will be ideal.
from a technical writing perspective you should stop carrying references from one paragraph to another. Specificall I can point at the short paragraph and the sentance 'our output is different too' you would rather say 'our output is as different as our activities' or 'our activities are different and our output is different as well' effectively what I sayin is that each paragraph in a proper essay should be able to stand alone insomuch as content. While, obviously, the synergy of the paragraphs of the essay must work together the component should be extractable and digestible without relying inherently on each other. In the example given the paragraph requires you to have read the previous passage to cogitate the entire paragraph. I have no way of reading that opening sentance and knowing what you mean by 'too' ..hopefully that helps. I had an instructor hammer that concept into me pretty hard, once upon a time.
Carpe Corporem!
@Sheaman subdermal powersupply is indeed one of the most challenging things to do. just slamming some gold in there wont do the trick, bio batteries (tho existant) are very hard to get and rather bulky, and conventional energy harvesting was estimated too weak to satisfy the power demanded by the electronics. so the batteries and charging pillow are a necessary technological compromise.
indeed, a fanciful imagination.
Semispontanious conversation with another transhumanist, apparently there a vascular turbines that create miliamps from the beating of your heart!? Combine that with miniauturized sterling engines and some form of battery system and we might be able to accomplish the goal.
Readers hanging out for dangerous DIY homemade tech experiments may wish to visit Richard's Reactor.
P.S. don't miss this photo of the "radioactive boy scout".
I posted the link to your essay on cyberpunkreview[dot]com's forums.
Hmm... Lepht still hasn't updated its blog. Or checked its email (or bothered to reply to mine, which I can understand since it probably sounded like some brat with a false sense of entitlement)
Seriously though, it's been more than 5 months since any of us heard anything from it, so my guess is that Lepht has either changed its online identity, has bitten the bullet, or has been abducted by aliens. Thoughts?
in case of the alien scenario it could greatly profit in case they put strange new technology in its body... aside from that i want to mention that can, and should continue on our own.
"It's alive!"
What was that all about?
I could see Lepht getting bored enough of the publicity to make a completely different online blog with a different name and all. Then again, I could see L biting the bullet. I could also see L getting completely lost in code, science and research to the point where there is no free time left.
@max I'm pretty fucking insane is all that's up!
What I mean is: Lepht is alive. A Thistledown repository appeared recently on sourceforge. Looking forward to seeing some code!
H+ guy:
Probably the latter. I know that one from myself all too well.
Spoon:
Pff. Sanity is way overrated. If it's alive, I'm content. That's all I wanted to know anyway. I can stop lurking now and continue trying to get my compass module to talk to my attiny now.
Lepht Anonym... anagram of Phony Lament. ;-)
Lepht Anonym... anagram of Phony Lament. ;-)
well, here's something interesting: anyone remember the time DM came to visit this blog (it was a year or so ago)? turns out he's been arrested, and is facing 16 charges for making death threats online. happy day.
~Ian
Parijata D. Mackey = Aid A Jetpack Army. Obviously a suspicious character.
I use my remaining Mana to cast status update!
check its twitter... apparently something's coming
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