H+

In high school, a nickname I had for a brief time with a brief friend was K*Tron. The friend liked robots and I did too. That was it. It was cute. I've always liked robots.

In that vein, I've been thinking lately about artificial intelligence.

I imagine a cool 10-20 year span of lab experiments where the public only knows, somewhere, somehow, scientists made a living thing in a safe, white vacuum like an Apple, Inc. backdrop and this will assure us, once again, that we are the greatest species on the planet.

Then some random scientist will fall in love with the robot she's working on and people will get angry and Massachusetts will wed the first human and humanoid.

Cool words like "droid" or "bot" will suddenly take on negative connotations like "fag."

Cybersex won't be what it is today in 2010.

What if?

I've been scrounging Wikipedia pages about "Roboethics" and "Transhumanism."

Wiki-montage #1 (Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental andphysical characteristics and capacities. The movement regards aspects of the human condition, such asdisability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and otheremerging technologies for these purposes. Dangers, as well as benefits, are also of concern to the transhumanist movement.)

Think about a future that isn't tangible or realistic. Think in the absurd, where Starbucks cards and cupcake vs. macaron trends are only wisps of a vintage past.

What if I were a robot? A cyborg. An H+. What if humanity got to the point where we had bypassed robotics as an aid and took it on as a permanent booster to our species? What if humanoid energy could be charged and recharged at our discretion (the new coffee shop -- get your jolt here, literally!) Plastic surgery would be replaced with plastic reconfiguration (For when things start to sag!) with synthetic materials made to be soft, warm, and elastic. Who wouldn't mind coming home to that? What if we started manufacturing companions so no one would ever have to be lonely. Advertising for companion marketing would be through the roof, ROBOT COMPANIONS-- what a naughty idea! like the sexy sleek ads for Absolut vodka or cigarettes.

H+.

Wikimontage #2: The term "transhumanism" is symbolized by H+ or h+ and is often used as a synonym for "human enhancement".^[2] Although the first known use of the term dates from 1957, the contemporary meaning is a product of the 1980s when futurists in the United States began to organize what has since grown into the transhumanist movement. Transhumanist thinkers predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman".

Transhumanism has been described by one critic, Francis Fukuyama, as the world's most dangerous idea,^[4] while one proponent, Ronald Bailey, counters that it is the "movement that epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm

In other news, this album cover is terrifying.

Do I only care because I'm a wannabe journalist and would guiltily love the chance to be alive and writing when humanity is forced to grapple with the prospect of "drastic self-improvement" with science and machinery? There are a lot of things that interest me, but people top the list. People never get boring. BUT! If people try to make themselves bionic - into perfect, longer-living, predictable beings, I think it will go against our very nature. Watching us deal with that will be fascinating.

Chaos will ensue, ethics will be questioned, dangerous risks will be taken by corporate suits, and I'll have a shit ton to write about.

Things are going to change so much.

For instance, one day at work, Matt, one of the lovely videographers, told me about his son Max. Max is about three and is great at the Wii, says Matt.

When I was three, I was great at playing with blocks and digging holes and reading books about dinosaurs.

If the military pushes for increasingly robotic technology to save the lives of our troops (i.e. the Air Force robotically operating planes to keep manual pilots away from the line of fire, etc.), are video games going to become something other than "the stuff that rots your brain?"

Will it actually be a marketable skill to have high scores in FPS games as technology becomes more and more integrated into a vocation like the military?

I don't have answers to any of these questions. But I have a lot of questions. It's a somewhat troubling self-realization for wanting something as much as I fear it. But, much like the concept of a zombie apocalypse, it would really suck but there aren't many opportunities in life to kick that much ass than in a zombie apocalypse.

[in other news]

I also recently had a dream about a classic zombie apocalypse and Kristin Baldwin was the first to turn. I remember it being tragic and everyone said she should have never been the first, because she was so nice. When I eventually turned into a zombie, the nightmare suddenly turned into a fun, reckless dream. I slept in. There was sledding down cream and my teeth were weapons.

He stole my idea for COMRT 290 next semester, but I'm ready to forgive

I'm in love.

Xanaduchess

I moved into the apartment two days ago. Golly, it's weird to be this independent. I don't have towels yet so I've been running from the bathroom to my room after showers. I just returned from a grocery shopping spree at the Market House. They sell tofu and gummy bears! I love the little old ladies selling fresh strawberries, but the Meadville male gaze is just the worst. I don't mind it in NY, but it's awful here.

Happily, Xanadu is full of incense, guitars, and cheddar whales. Maggie and Colin are wonderful housemates and we have dinners followed by guitar jam sessions. The mirrors and windows in my room make me feel like I have a high-rise apartment in Boston. Pictures to come. Kitty to come.

I'm not grounded.

This was a blog post from late May that I never published. I started it, didn't like it, and had a bad attitude for the rest of that day. Today I rediscovered it in my long list of drafts. I like it now. I am so fickle, so fluid, so quick to change my style or mood or wants or dreams at any given moment, which is part of why I love writing -- nothing else permanently captures my sudden sense of self at any given time.

"I wake up and get out of bed five hours after I wanted to, because I was too engrossed in a dream about re-acquaintance with an old friend from Holy Cross Grammar School but having to fill the pothole in front of her gigantic house. Then my dream ricocheted to another scene, an exotic pet store that looked and smelled exactly like a Filipino fish market, but with baby plesiosaurs and placentas, and I was shopping with a current friend who wanted to buy everything even though they were phasing out the sale of plesiosaurs because they were too slimy.

Meanwhile, in real life, I peeled myself from the forty different covers I have on my bed, which I nightly wrap myself in like a corndog, stumble downstairs and pour myself too-big of a bowl of Oats and Honey, which I am currently half-way finished eating, but it is too soggy to enjoy anymore and the sad little flakes are droopy like my mood.

Professor Nesset said once that he writes best in the morning. This has been an attempt and I say, fuggit. I have no motivation. The only good thing about this day so far has been getting a text message from Sam, and all it says is 'Falafel!!'"

Sometimes I worry I don't have a grounded sense of self. Maybe knowing that is the only grounded, steadfast thing about me. I have a memory of doing yoga in Montgomery Hall during Fall semester of last year. It was just me and Maggie with Jacquelyn Shannon instructing us. At one point, we were all laying on the ground, listening to yoga music, eyes closed, arms out but legs scrunched close to our butts.

"Breathe in, breathe out," Jacqueline said. "Don't think about anything, just breathe and exist."

We did this for a while. Then she said:

"Think about where your palms are. If you want to feel grounded and closer to the Earth, face them down. If you want to be open to the air and space, face them up."

She said something else about heavenly energies that I don't remember but I immediately faced mine up. It was no question. Then I cheated and opened my eyes to look around at Maggie and Jacquelyn. They both had their palms faced down. I closed my eyes and suddenly felt a bit lonely.

Books

I always actively accept book recommendations. This summer, I have sadly only read one so far. The downside to the internship is very little free time, but I did pick up pretty little dirty and managed to spend a weekend enjoying it. It was quite artful and the characters were so realistically pompous and full of themselves that I spend two days after finishing the book acting pompous and full of myself because I felt so in their heads. Not a good thing, but certainly an impressive trick by Amanda Boyden.

A few excerpts I especially liked-

"You have been let into the club early, hours before others, by the boy who jizzed straight into your sinuses.."

"'Rose Bitch and me are just friends. Isn't that what we're tellin' the rich girls, honey?' He spoke into her magenta scalp and squeezed his arm again. I watched his bicep pop up like a bun."

"Celeste often sat at the Formica kitchen table with the scale, measuring and weighing and packaging. She had a knack for folding what became her signature glossy-magazine envelopes that she cut carefully from high-end publications, making sure some artistic scene appeared properly centered on the smooth side. Pretending occasionally to move single grain after single grain from one pile to another, she would call out to Rumpelstiltskin to come put an end to her toiling."

How Overkill! I mean, if Overkill ever dealt cocaine.

Right now, I am happily devouring the late Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as well as Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog, per Katie Locke's recommendation. Both are wonderful so far; Stieg is unexpectedly sexy and Barbery teaches me ten brilliant new words every chapter.

I can't believe Girl is already a Swedish film and is going to be a Hollywood film. I'm really excited to see both and hope they do justice, unlike The DaVinci Code. Not that I loved The DaVinci Code, but you know. All of this is quite embarrassing because I'm following Rule #127 of Stuff White People Like to a fucking T.

I really ought to read more biographies, like this one that I wanted so much that I took a picture to remind myself to buy it when I finally have an income:

GUITAR.

I went to the music store fully bent on getting myself a ukulele [Julia Nunes inspires me, not because they’re trendy and cute]. But they only had crappy $40 ones with kitschy frogs on them [more on that in the video below].

So I started looking at the amateur guitars, all of which started at $90...rough. The friendly salesboys (who all seemed to have mastered the musician hairflip) kept pushing the Union Jack electric guitar that I admittedly drooled over when I first walked in the store BUT I stuck firmly to my price range. One of them remembered a mini guitar (travel guitar? guitarlet?) that was brought in just today, because some dude died and it got sent to their store [SCORE!]. It was used and therefore ON SALE!

I’ll take it, I said, without having even seen it.

Don’t you want to play it first?, asked a salesboy.

Oh, I don’t play guitar...

He raised one eyebrow.

And my knowledge of guitars is embarrassing at best, but I want to start, I said, with my most winning smile.

So he offered me a free lesson next Sunday at 1:00 and I got two free picks out of it, a blue one and a red one.

Superman colors, I said.

He smiled widely and offered a mini lesson right then and there.

Okay, why not?

What’s your name?

Katrina, what’s yours?

Sam.

Of course.

They have extremely creepy backrooms for lessons. As soon as he took a good look at my hands, he cleared his throat.

Uh, first lesson. You gotta cut your nails.

I tried to pluck some strings to no avail.

Yeah, I know. They’re nasty.

This’ll be a little harder than I thought, he said.

I could bite them off. Give me two minutes.

And so I did, which didn’t gross him out as much as it should have. I learned an A chord and he promised to teach me a basic version of a Vampire Weekend song on Sunday! Today I taught myself part of Stand by Me, part of Little Boxes (from Weeds), and part of La Bamba. I also am now acutely aware that I have quite a fat ring fingerpad, which makes the C chord unbearable. Feel free to laugh at my struggles below.

Inherent

"No, listen mom, I'll never be an engineer because I've never cared to take apart a toaster just to see how it works. It was always more like, let's paint this toaster electric blue and see if anyone likes it enough to buy."

Kick your knees up, step in time.

The intern life? I am learning oh so much, but my progress feels very -two steps forward, one step back,- which has instilled quite a fear in me of screwing up something big. Suddenly all my work is REAL!, LIVE!, and ON AIR! & if I don't keep up, I'll get dizzily left in the dust [without recommendations]. Yikes! A sampling of my stepping pattern... (like how the bees dance, Ms. Frizzle says that's a whole science.)

1. Learn rotational sphere animation on the Avid.

2. Learn rotational pancake animation on the Avid.

3. Am given a simple project of cuts and cross-dissolves and manage to crash the Avid.

4. Stay late into the night doing graphics for Senate session.

5. Rewarded with egg rolls from staff and bond over after-hours Chinese takeout.

6. Exit wrong doors and set off alarms on entire West side of Legislative Building.

7. Am given golden opportunity to do shoots for press conferences.

8. Successfully shoot first press conference.

9. Accidentally unplug camera with my foot during second press conference, in the middle of a sensitive speech about autistic children.

10. Attend the Senate-sponsored Dairy Day, collect ice cream, yogurts, and cheeses.

11. Spend day happily wheeling camera equipment to and from conference rooms, munching on treats.

12. Realize at end of day that the cheese I put in my pocket in the morning has melted into my good business pants.

13. Learn to set up all media equipment for on-the-fly press conferences.

14. Cleverly purchase blazers with big pockets to hold important microphones and cables for whipping out at the last minute.

15. Forget important microphones and cables in pockets and accidentally steal them. Twice.

Somehow, they're still nice to me.

Today, one guy even brought in a box of Cheez-its!

Learnin's good, but when it gets tough, I indulge my sweet, simple childhood dream to be a dancing chimney sweeper. Or in the glad company of one.

Snigger

Cheese #3: Barber's Vintage Cheddar

I sit out on the porch, recovering from the buzzy excitement of afternoon-off bookstore shopping. Now I have my literature, a glass of Chablis, and my new bar of co-op cheese to try: a $1.05 English cheddar recommended by the handsome 20-something running the cheese sampling counter at Honest Foods. The actual name of the co-op is Honest Weight Foods, but I don't like that name, so I've shortened it in my head.

I'm not in the mood to write a fiction about this cheese, so I have only nonfiction. (I don't think I have enough talent yet to delve into cheese poetry.) I've meticulously set up my surroundings to what I hope resembles the life of an artful bloggess, like Emily from http://cupcakesandcashmere.com/ And while blogging is always self-centered and presumptuous, I can't help but admire how easy they make everything seem so lush, so decadent. It's escapist. And although the sun shines, the wine refreshes, Miles Davis plays, and the cheddar crumbles with savory texture, I can't forget that I'm a broke 21-year-old intern SANS INCOME who can't afford this lifestyle I'm living. In fact, as soon as I'm out on my own, I don't even know if a $1.05 bar of cheese will be a treat I can afford. I feel like I'm playing a part in a play and these books and treats are props. I really want a good job someday.