Cras Ex Machina - Tomorrow of the machine

Define Change While Thinking About the World as a Whole

2011-01-30T15:30:00.000-08:00

Article first published as Define Change While Thinking About the World as a Whole on Technorati.

With people in Middle Eastern countries revolting against their dictators and trying to end decades of oppression; you can only wonder, what does change mean for those willing to risk their lives to obtain it?

There could be lots of answers to this question. A short definition for the word change could be as simple as making something different from what it is.
On the other hand, someone may argue that change could even mean life. Since without the state transitions, or changes, between energy and matter that any organism requires to sustain itself, there would be no life. And a universe reaching a state of equilibrium and maximum entropy would leave no possibility for any change becoming a postcard of a giant dead-frozen bubble.

To a country and to those people who had suffered dictatorships, change would probably just mean to become a democracy. To them this meaning would be self-evident, as it usually is for those who need it the most.

Through out history a need sometimes added to the growing realization of the possibility of a change for the better, sparkled revolutions. In other countries, living under other realities, where we may enjoy democracy and better conditions of living, we sometimes fail to see how much others may need a change. Even for example when we know there are those who suffer poverty or other problems. Gandhi once said that poverty is the worst kind of violence. The need to change the conditions under which his people lived, to stop that intrinsic violence, must have been self-evident to him and his followers.

Yet poverty, growing inequality, are not the only things that we fail to see as a problem of humanity as a whole. And that under a different light may become self-evident.

Sometimes it seems, when people enforce their power to vote in any democracy, that all the options that they may end up choosing from are either some government that leans to the right or some other that leans to the left. But if history, and never ending cycles of booms and busts, had anything to teach us, is that it doesn't matter much which way you chose, in the end you will probably suffer the same problems again.

Is that what we really want?. Couldn't it be possible to find better alternatives?.

If we stop to think about this for a minute, taking a closer look you could see that any of those options are still based on, and they all have in common, the same underlying monetary system. A system that was initially devised as a way of easing trade, but that soon enough replace common sense with a need of its own, making profits. Since the accumulation of money inevitably translates in a direct accumulation of power, the only real motivation and goal of such a system becomes also a necessity required to stay in the game, the necessity of obtaining money.

While this became the main goal of those using the system, any other goal, as for example the well being of the whole, would be usually trumped over by the ambitions of the individuals or the more immediate needs to keep the ball rolling.

If you don't believe this to be true just consider a very clear and simple example. We all know the world will eventually run out of oil. That's why it is called a finite resource. And still, the efforts made to this day to move away from it are insignificant.

Why? Well, there is no profit on switching to a more expensive alternative. Oil is cheap if you compare it with other forms of gathering proportional amounts of energy. So, although it would be in the best interest of all human kind to try to remove our dependence on oil, we are not doing it. Period.

Why would we use nuclear power and put reactors on a seismic island called Japan if we could agree that we, humans, don't want to take that risk and that other more "expensive" alternatives could be better for all?. There is no sensible answer, but the realization of an inherent problem in our organization.

It is at the point where you start to realize that there could be a problem related to how our whole world is organized, that is rooted so deep that no government would even touch it, that you may start to see a self-evident needed change. If you see it now, let me welcome you to the land of those who chose to open their eyes.

Many great people in history dreamed of and saw, at least in their minds, a different world. A world with less inequality, less poverty, less violence, less oppression, and more common sense. From those many, the ones who dared to consider it possible, who didn't disregard their dreams as utopian, became part of a change that end up changing the world.

Instead of standing in front of their dreams like just any another obstacle, they made them real.

Have you ever wonder if there could be better alternatives to the way we are organized today as a society?

If the answer is yes then you should be open to think about alternatives. The good news is that alternatives have already emerged from human imagination (we still don't have the singularity Skynet nor Hal 9000 and Wolphran Alpha can't even play jeopardy as Ibm's Watson; so don't expect a machine to give us a better idea soon).

One of those alternative ideas is a society based only on resources, where the focus is set on making the world a better place for everyone in an intelligent way, hopefully without killing us all in the process.

An overcoming idea if you consider it next to the current mainstream ones. Mainstream ones like the classic: "Let's just exploit the hell out of the planet until all hell breaks loose! We'll let our children deal with the rest on the future!". But probably hardly implementable, from the point of view of requiring the whole world to agree on a plan. Did these geniuses ever had neighbors???.. :)

Sure enough, eventually depleted global resources could make the need for a change absolutely evident, but reaching such a point unprepared would probably spell catastrophe for humanity as a whole.

It would also not be fair to overlook some other weaknesses of that idea, like the almost despotic conclusions and seamless manipulation of how some of those are reached based on "science", and the apparently intentional disregard of the individual will to disagree with how they are reached.

Yet, even taking in mind those observations, it's an idea worth considering. And if you think you would like to hear more about it, you could watch a movie like the one below. Who knows.. you might even like it and end up thinking a little change could be a good thing.

ZEITGEIST: MOVING FORWARD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w

Status Quo vs Wikileaks, Status Quo vs Common Good

2010-12-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

The cause of recurring errors should be looked for in the system and not in the people, Deming said. Poverty is a recurring error (ok, this is mine).

He may have used different words, but his ideas were as clear as this. To get some context, you should understand Deming started pointing this out after Taylorism had already concluded that workers (many of whom were probably immigrants at the time who had trouble communicating in English) were stupid and needed to be told how to avoid errors and do a better job, and to be paid extra to work hard because.. -ironic mode on- of course, they were lazy too -ironic mode off/-.

Capitalism, suffers from the same basic belief. That we are essentially bad, as western religions teach as (you shouldn't have bitten that apple), and we need a carrot in front of our noses to push society forward. A system propelled by the dream of reaching the joys of excess, failing to see the problem of unlimited accumulation of wealth (ever saw a bank account overflow and drop even a penny onto others?..). The idea crumbles when confronted with the unmet basic needs of the many (“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one”.. thank you Mr Spock).

And its stupidity (not Spoks, capitalism stupidity) seems unmatchable when confronted with some plain facts.

So when I read that the first private spacecraft, SpaceX's Falcon 9, has finally reached orbit, I cannot help to hear that voice in the back of my head that says: "So what?.. Haven't humanity already reached the moon?". Sure, by a capitalist system, that currently is suffering a bit.

There are some things that from my point of view should belong to humanity as a whole. For example, knowledge. Knowledge should be freely shared to allow humanity to move forward as a whole.

If we were able to reach the moon almost 50 years ago, imagine where we could be now if that knowledge would had been shared. Imagine how faster research to cure illnesses could move forward if there was full collaboration between lab researchers instead of the need of isolation to prevent the loss of an strategic advantage that could turn into profit.

The value of life clashes against consumerism, and yet we accept if. Or most of us do. And from inaction we support the status quo. And when common good collides with profits it hardly wins, because common good is not an objective of the system nor of the those in power.

On the other side no communist system has been able to escape from becoming some sort of dictatorship, just falling behind, or finishing in a combination of both, that just exploits its people almost as slaves (hello China). And more moderate socialist states seem mere puppets of a financial system that makes them roll over their alleged ideals.

Alternative ideas for better systems exist, but have not yet proven that they could work, nor that they could prevent the problem of becoming another form of dictatorship (or technocracy..).

And yet, under any of these systems, we tend to say nothing when faced by problems. Maybe because deep inside we believe we must also be partially guilty of that latest bust of the financial/economic bubble. Sometimes just turning into disbelief of the systems we live under.

So when the status quo, in this case democratic governments (please tell me who voted for a war against wikileaks?), forget about their high ideals of freedom, free speech and free press, to attack an organization that just doesn't play for their best interest because it can bring to light facts that can turn the masses against them, we can't allow ourselves to not say anything.
When we notice that governments worldwide seem to converge into increasingly policed states and human rights fall behind, we can't indulge ourselves with the luxury of inaction.

Please sign the Wikileaks petition.

To access Wikileaks just do a search in any search engine for "wikileaks mirror" or search for related articles.

Here you have one list (wikileaks has lost its domain and this page could be lost in the fire of the ongoing cyber war): http://wikileaks.info/

New Zeitgeist movie coming

2010-10-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

The Zeitgeist movement and his global coordinator Peter Joseph, who was also the producer of the previous two Zeitgeist films, are preparing for the simultaneous release, in over 60 countries and in more than 20 languages, of a new movie/documentary called "Zeitgeist: Moving forward".

With a launch scheduled for early 2011 , this new movie/documentary promises to explore the controversial subject of the need to transition from the current global monetary socio-economic system to a resource based and scientifically-lead one (that probably Socrates would approve).

With a trailer that gives a preview of more emotionally engaging and thought provoking imagery that will string along with facts about current social problems and ideas on how to resolve them -in line with the Zeitgeist style-, this promises to be an interesting addition to the saga. And one that followers and those interested in a good documentary will certainly welcome.

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward | Official Trailer

Steorn's demo orbo board (evaluation unit) now available

2010-10-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

Steorn anounced today people can now buy their evaluation unit:

http://www.steorn.com/skdb/oedu/

Purchasing the kit grants a one year developer license and access to their developers forum, SKDB, where they will provide support for those testing the unit.

Steorn releasing demo board of solid state Orbo

2010-10-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

Orbo is a revolutionary new energy technology from Steorn. It uses time-variant magnetic interactions to produce non-conservative energy results.

This is how Steorn introduces their tech in a new video where they show the reactions of three individuals, with backgrounds in physics and electronics, after a visit where they were able to do tests with the demo board and measure the energy going in vs. the energy going out.

And what were their tests results?

Hugh Deasy, satellite controller at the European Space Operations Center, said:

We saw 308

308% means they saw an output of energy of more than 3 times the energy that was put in.

(See some questions I made to Hugh below the video)

You can see the video right here:

Also on Steorn's official youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SteornOfficial

My friend Hugh spared a moment and answered a few questions about his visit:

What was your first thought when you saw the gain?

First sign seeing the calculation coming out was great relief that we could reproduce Seamus's result. Also, Craig and I were both amazed at how easy it had been.

Do you think others will quickly come to the conclusion this is real and start developing it into products?

With this board, others only have to hook it up to sensors. No matter where they put the probes, they should be able to see the evidence of this enormous gain - 200 - 700 %, depending on the exact rig setup. To the clever engineers amongst them, they will quickly see how to optimize and close the loop and get self running products.

Any other comments on what you think will happen with this in the near future?

I think in the near future the first 6 or 10 to get these boards should almost all confirm that more energy is miraculously emerging. Of course some boards will suffer in transit. But some will survive - enough to make the difference. That's my take on it!

For the people who live oblivious to the future

2010-08-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

An excellent video from sociologist David Harley, that points out the problems with the current system based on profits from which our world suffers an endless sucession of crisis after crisis and growing inequality.

Don't miss it if you have 10 minutes to spare before you have to run after your next profit.. :p

David Harley - The Crises of Capitalism Animated

Also available on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0

Steorn launches free access to Orbo, calls it SKDB Lite

2010-06-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

Steorn is anouncing tomorrow the launch of free-access to their tech through a space they have choosen to call "SKDB Lite".

This will probably be a simplified version of the payed SKDB.

In a recent comment Sean McCarthy, Steorn's CEO, encouraged people to join while joking about it being like facebook, but for engineers.

The power of social networking meets the power of blasphemous innovation.

Now we know the world is coming to an end... ;)

Steorn slowly making progress

2010-06-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

Steorn is about to release more information related to their technology this week, acording to Sean McCarthy's comments to Ireland's The Post.

Contrary to what would be expected, with the economic crisis looming over Europe, their numbers seem to be improving thanks to the thousands of interested developers joining the skdb, that opened this year.

News of possible improvements in their results, and of other possible replication experiments, have also been heard. Although a 3rd party product that finally shows the tech in action is still awaited.

Memristors and the future of computing

2010-05-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

A non-volatile, fast, cheap, low-consuming, long-lasting and highly-scalable memory.

Think about those conditions for a moment and you'll immediately understand that those would be the ideal features that a computer designer could dream of.

That, in a nutshell, is what memristors promise for the future of computers.

None of the memory devices used today in computers can combine all of those in a single device.

That's why computers today have at least a hard disk, non volatile, but slow (in relation); and a RAM memory, volatile, but faster and more expensive (in relation).

Add to that the possibility of in-memory processing an essentially you are describing a human brain. And guess what.. memristors could do just that.

So, what is a memristor?.. Essentially you can think of it as a resistance that can be set to a value, or state, and it stays that way, remembering it.. A resistance with memory. An essentially passive electronic component predicted by L. Chua many years ago.

If you want to know more about them and about some of the people who are making this a reality, spend some time watching this video:

People die thanks to a new economic crisis

2010-05-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

The inevitable succession of bubbles of economic growth followed by their implosion into crisis that the monetary and financial system produces (by its need of endless economic growth that is impossible to sustain in the long run without unlimited resources..) shows its bad side again killing 3, including a pregnant woman.

This has happened so many times.. remember the .com bubble?... the big depression in the US?.. the tequila effect?.. the Asia crisis?.. Argentina in 2001?..

How the hell can't we think of a better alternative?...

Do we really prefer to just condemn ourselves and our future to live with this failed system and suffer this again and again?

May be there could be better alternatives out there.. http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/

And the irony is that they will probably get "helped" by increasing their debt ! LOL

Steorn invites people to measure Orbo, gives talk

2010-05-04T17:46:00.000-07:00

Sean McCarthy, Steorn's CEO, gave a talk on Thursday, April 29, and chatted with those who attended the event at The Building Centre, Store Street, London.

The event was made public with this announcement:

The Engineering Club, in a spirit of sceptical open-minded enquiry, is hosting a talk by Sean McCarthy, CEO of Steorn to discuss their development of Orbo technology. Although they have yet to convince the wider scientific community, their claim is that Orbo can create a free, clean and constant energy supply. While seemingly in violation of the Law of Conservation of Energy, the creation of such an unlimited energy source would be truly unprecedented, resulting in the transformation of global energy sourcing. We hope you can join us to hear about this new technology and debate its merits in what promises to be a fascinating and controversial talk. You are welcome to bring your own measuring device to calculate the amount of electricity produced by Orbo.

But the attendance to the event didn't bring any measuring device from what we gather from one comment about the event made by Sean:

Great fun - but NO ONE came along with measuring kit - all the same 80 plus people and all very proper !

Hopefully the next event will have better publicity and more measuring kits will be present..

On a side note, Steorn's public forum seems to have been closed down. Leaving the SKDB as the only place available to discuss Orbo technology -supported by Steorn-.

Edit to add:

Sean let me know this is only one of a series of private talks they are doing. That explains the lack of publicity.

Before leaving another comment please note that I was referring to places -supported by Steorn- when I mentioned that the SKDB is the only one left where anyone can discuss Orbo tech.

Social Pathology, ZM and Collapse documentary

2010-04-18T19:41:00.000-07:00

If you would like to learn about what effects the monetary system has on societies please don't miss this awesome presentation about Social Pathology from Peter Joseph of the ZM:

You may also be interested in seeing the "Collapse" documentary, that clearly explains how a monetary and financial system requires infinite growth, which is impossible in the long run even without considering that resources -are- finite. And that this creates an infinite succession of bubbles of growth followed by crisis, which in turn increase inequality and poverty, feeding the growing plutonomies:

And if you care to know more about the Zeitgeist movement read this excellent article on it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/travis-walter-donovan/the-zeitgeist-movement-en_b_ 501517.html

Some key points:

"It takes a different value system if you wish to change the world"
"Communism is still just another system with banks and social stratification"
"Our present model of society cannot sustain itself"
"20% of the American population controls 85% of the money. Also mentioning that the Walton family (of Wal-Mart) owns $90 billion while the lower 40% of America own $95 billion."
"Resource preservation is equal to human survival, and all the social ideologies that currently exist are inadequate because they don't address resources as a part of their fundamental principals."
"Automated labor would be perfected on a mass scale, something frowned upon in capitalism because it is equated with job loss and unemployment. Fresco insists eliminating all mundane jobs that insult human capacity when they can instead be relegated to machines that will act more precisely and productively."
"As idealistic as this may sound, keep in mind that there is currently enough food to feed everyone in the world, but not enough money to pay for it. One billion people (one-sixth of the world) are starving, yet American's throw out approximately 40% of their purchased food."
"Fresco says that in a world where everything is supplied, the majority of today's crimes would be non-existent, as they are primarily related to obtaining money and property, or born of social inequality."
"In a monetary society, Joseph points out, obsolescence is encouraged, as the shorter lifespan a product has, the more profit it generates in the long-term. Excess waste is built into the system, which flourishes from disposability and inefficiency. In a monetary system, Joseph says, change, abundance, sustainability, and efficiency are the enemies of profit. He goes on to add, "Corporations are not in competition with other corporations but with progress itself."

Or check out some excellent art on the subject:

And don't forget the fact that the only motive that powers the monetary system is self-interest. And you cannot expect that to care for how our world ends up.
We cannot accept not thinking of better alternatives.

So the question becomes: Where's the 100th monkey? :)

Magnetic monopoles at room temperature

2010-04-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

Magnets have two poles. One north and one south pole. Different poles attract each other, and equal poles repel each other. No matter how you cut a magnet, you always end up with two poles in each piece.

But scientists have longed theorized that magnetic monopoles (just a north or a south pole) should be possible, since in electricity, doing a parallel with electric charges, you can have for example a single negative charge, an electron, or a positive charge, a proton.

Some time ago scientists produced the first "monopole-like" nano structures at freezing temperatures.
Now scientists from London have created the first magnetic monopoles at room temperature.

You can read more about this on the related news page of the Imperial College of London.
Or watch a video from the scientists involved explaining it here.

First book about Steorn story hits Amazon

2010-04-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

"...Well I think that is a question of mindset, once we discovered and proved to ourselves the initial anomaly, we got very interested. After some research we found that we could explain the results with known effects, i.e. the result itself could be expected. But we went one step further, which is rather than just accepting classical explanations of these known (if little known) effects (and there are indeed many views on what causes these effects over the years) we decided to do what out engineering educations taught us to do, which is to design tests and make our own minds"

This can be read on the first pages of the first book to come out to the public about the Steorn saga. Although the controversy around Steorn's discovery is far from over, the amazing story around it could well be the subject of many books or even movies.

Anyway, if you don't feel like reading it or think this one won't be any good you may just wait for when my book is available. ;)

Steorn SKDB opens to the public plus Solid State Orbo

2010-04-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

The Steorn SKDB opened today with a public announcement from Sean McCarthy, Steorn's CEO.
In the announcement Sean made public that they are providing information inside the SKDB about a new solid state version (with no moving parts) of Orbo.
So, if you were planning on joining, now is the time!

There's also more information about each version of Orbo now on Steorn's site.

Announcement from Steorn page:

Steorn Orbo license at €419.00 for invited guests

2010-03-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

Invited guests are now able to join Steorn's SKDB for €419.00.
This week the registration was opened to those invited with an announcement on the SKDB registration page that doesn't give much more information on when it will open to the rest of the public. Although it says this is for the current week. Which may mean / lead us to think there could be news next week.
One thing is for certain, Steorn is on the move and it won't stop to amaze us.

Visit my friend Craig's blog for more details on this: FreeEnergyTruth

The dark side of the iPad

2010-03-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

Apple's iPad, soon to be released to the public, may be seen as the latest new toy everyone would love to play with at this moment. But, as the Kindle from Amazon, it paves the way to the definitive move away from the printed reading -a decaying business- and into the digital era for books, newspapers, magazines, etc.
If you consider for a second that this may make Apple one of the biggest channels of distribution for written content, as it happened with music with iTunes, you may start to see how a company that arbitrary decides what gets published or not could be not so great. If they are already pushing (or threatening?..) magazines to change their format if they want to get on the iPad, what would stop them from arbitrary (Steve Jobs way..) influencing tomorrow what news is distributed or what political books are included or not..
Many say that famous old add featuring Apple as a force for freedom against big brother has now very little to do with the current ways of the company..

Curing aging

2010-03-20T07:01:00.000-07:00

Longer life expectancy comes along with more aging related diseases. Extending quality of life and reaching for immortality is a dream that has been around since humans became aware of their own mortality.

Nobody sees death as a good thing. All adults start, eventually, to experience and suffer the effects of aging. But a frontal direct approach to finding "a cure" is not even consider as an option by most scientist that simply see this as an impossible task, or not as an actual problem (or resolvable problem).

But science is advancing at an increasing speed in this field, and although significant results have arguably not been reached yet, many things seem more possible now than ever before.

With this in mind, a gathering of great minds has been put together to accomplish just that, a full frontal attack on the problem with a team of interdisciplinary experts. Following the example of what was done to reach the goal of creating the first atomic bomb in project Manhattan.

The Manhattan Beach Project is the name of this new project, and the results from it are already very exciting.

See for example this presentation where a new technology that can turn back the clock of aging on individual cells is explained:

More information:

The Manhattan Beach Project

Resetting the clock of aging
Manhattan Beach Project Youtube channel

Suspended animation is within our grasp

The Mprize

Printing buildings

2010-03-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

Turn the printer on. Click the print button. And you have a house.

Yeah, right.. I would say. We are not accustom to seeing 3d printers, nor any kind of printer that can't be placed over your desktop.

Well, this guy seems to think that is not such a crazy idea. Take a look at some of the pictures of his printer and you'll immediately see what I mean...

3d printing technology has great potential. From allowing astronauts to build safe buildings with little work, to empowering on demand on site fabrication of goods. And this is just an example of the things that could come out of it.

More about the artist:

fastcompany.com
inhabitat.com

Z-day main event to be broadcast live from New York

2010-03-13T10:55:00.001-08:00

Find it on the z-day page: http://zday2010.org/

Or watch the live stream (around an hour to go before it starts) from right here:

Free Webcam Chat at Ustream

Artificial photosynthesis to produce hydrogen

2010-03-07T18:18:00.000-08:00

"The dream of filling your car's fuel tank with tap water" has probably been mentioned enough to become a cliche.. But this tech could, supposedly, produce hydrogen from water using a catalyst and sun light in a very cheap way.

As with many other promising technologies, we will have to wait and see if it pans out:

More information:
http://www.suncatalytix.com/

Steorn, alive n' kicking

2010-03-03T19:32:00.000-08:00

Recent news from Steorn indicate the requests for hands on testing of their Orbo technology by interested third party engineers / companies has exceeded expectations prompting Steorn to extend the testing period further into March.

This also delays the opening to the public of their licensing program, but may indicate that the interest in validating the tech, and possibly develop products with it, is raising.

It could very well be the first sign of a turn of tides regarding the reception of the claim by the public in general.

More information:

http://www.steorn.com/news/

http://freeenergytruth.blogspot.com/

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine

2010-01-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

The time for the final Steorn Orbo presentation has arrived.
Don't miss it: http://www.steorn.com

And in case you need some music to go with that:
http://blip.fm/~k1rx6

Steorn Orbo Final Demo this Saturday!

2010-01-25T18:45:00.000-08:00

If you are anywhere next to Ireland next Saturday then you better get to Dublin. Steorn final demo, "Proving overunity", is coming this January 30, 2010.

If you can't make it you can still watch it like the rest of us through their live stream at steorn.com from 16:00 GMT on.

The final experiment in Steorn's Orbo demo coming up

2010-01-20T15:10:00.000-08:00

With only eleven days to go before the official launch of the Steorn Knowledge Develoment Base (or SKDB for short), the final experiment on the live Demo that started on December 2009 is about to take place.

According to Sean (see his comment from a few hours ago on Steorn's public forum), they are setting it up and will let everyone know once they are ready to go live.

In the meantime another experiment was uploaded by Steorn to youtube in relation to the measured change in inductance from the last experiment that would show an inductance gain (that checking the numbers could be translated into an energy gain).

In this experiment Max clearly shows how the inductance change does not mean a change in current, and how in this case this is translated in a change in the energy stored in the coil, in this case a loss in energy from 5mJ to almost 0mJ:

We can only hope the last experiment will be this clear.

Well done Max!