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Internet. Television. It's all the same.

Guy at empanada stand at the airport in Miami: Aye. i know you from the television.

Me: No you don't. You're just trying to get me to buy something. (joking)

Empanada Guy: Yes I do but that's okay. You don't want to be noticed. We're not asking to take your picture.

Me: I'm not on TV though.

Empanada Guy: Yes you are with the white coat and the funny things on the Internet.

Me: You mean online?

Empanada Guy: On the YouTube on the television. I watch it with my son. He loves it. He thinks you very funny.

Me: Oh wow. So you *do* know me. I'm not famous though.

Empanada Guy: Yes you are but don't worry. I won't take your picture. I'll just tell my son I saw you.

Me: Um. Ok. I can take a picture with you. It's just that I'm not--

Empanada Guy: That's ok. You don't want to be noticed.

Me: No I'm just not used to this. It's the Internet. Not television.

Empanada Guy: Internet. Television. It's all the same.

Brains of rats connected allowing them to share information via internet Scientists have connected the brains of a pair of animals and allowed them to share sensory information in a major step towards what the researchers call the world’s first “organic computer”. The US team fitted two rats with devices called brain-to-brain interfaces that let the animals collaborate on simple tasks to earn rewards, such as a drink of water. In one radical demonstration of the technology, the scientists used the internet to link the brains of two rats separated by thousands of miles, with one in the researchers’ lab at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the other in Natal, Brazil. Led by Miguel Nicolelis, a pioneer of devices that allow paralysed people to control computers and robotic arms with their thoughts, the researchers say their latest work may enable multiple brains to be hooked up to share information. “These experiments showed that we have established a sophisticated, direct communication linkage between brains,” Nicolelis said in a statement. “Basically, we are creating what I call an organic computer.” Nicolelis said the team is now working on ways to link several animals’ brains at once to solve more complex tasks. “We cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a ‘brain-net’,” he said. “In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.” Rats that reblog. I feel like I saw a Dollhouse episode about this once. It didn’t end well. Video here. (h/t verdi)
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Brains of rats connected allowing them to share information via internet

Scientists have connected the brains of a pair of animals and allowed them to share sensory information in a major step towards what the researchers call the world’s first “organic computer”.

The US team fitted two rats with devices called brain-to-brain interfaces that let the animals collaborate on simple tasks to earn rewards, such as a drink of water.

In one radical demonstration of the technology, the scientists used the internet to link the brains of two rats separated by thousands of miles, with one in the researchers’ lab at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the other in Natal, Brazil.

Led by Miguel Nicolelis, a pioneer of devices that allow paralysed people to control computers and robotic arms with their thoughts, the researchers say their latest work may enable multiple brains to be hooked up to share information.

“These experiments showed that we have established a sophisticated, direct communication linkage between brains,” Nicolelis said in a statement. “Basically, we are creating what I call an organic computer.”

Nicolelis said the team is now working on ways to link several animals’ brains at once to solve more complex tasks. “We cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a ‘brain-net’,” he said. “In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.”

Rats that reblog.

I feel like I saw a Dollhouse episode about this once. It didn’t end well.

Video here.

(h/t verdi)

elspethjane: Rocklin Teen Accused Of Drugging Her Parents To Access Internet A Rocklin teen who was upset that her parents wouldn’t let her access the Internet after 10 p.m. drugged their milkshakes with sleeping medicine, according to police. The teen secretly put a friend’s prescription sleep medicine in her parents’ milkshakes on Dec. 28, Rocklin police Lt. Lon Milka said in press release Wednesday. The parents found it a bit odd when their daughter offered to buy milkshakes. Dad wanted chocolate. Mom asked for vanilla. They noticed their milkshakes tasted odd and only consumed about a quarter of them, but it was enough to put them to sleep, Milka said. “They had a crunchy texture, bad taste in their mouth,” Milka said. “Subsequently, they fell asleep.” 1.) Coincidence on the last name? I think not.  2.) She won the internet that day.  (via CBS Local) The above gif is a real photo of the girl drugging her parents not joking.
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elspethjane:

Rocklin Teen Accused Of Drugging Her Parents To Access Internet

A Rocklin teen who was upset that her parents wouldn’t let her access the Internet after 10 p.m. drugged their milkshakes with sleeping medicine, according to police.

The teen secretly put a friend’s prescription sleep medicine in her parents’ milkshakes on Dec. 28, Rocklin police Lt. Lon Milka said in press release Wednesday.

The parents found it a bit odd when their daughter offered to buy milkshakes. Dad wanted chocolate. Mom asked for vanilla. They noticed their milkshakes tasted odd and only consumed about a quarter of them, but it was enough to put them to sleep, Milka said.

“They had a crunchy texture, bad taste in their mouth,” Milka said. “Subsequently, they fell asleep.”

1.) Coincidence on the last name? I think not.  2.) She won the internet that day. 

(via CBS Local)

The above gif is a real photo of the girl drugging her parents not joking.

internet
Quote IconThe internet is not a medium. This is the fundamental issue at the heart of the artworld’s grappling with digital / net art, it’s the issue at the heart of our conceptual problems with ebooks, it’s the fundamental basis for thinking about the New Aesthetic. The post-internet crowd know this: this is what post-internet means. Because we’ve been treating the internet as a medium like photography or sculpture or painting. The internet is not a medium: it is a context.

James Bridle - Network criticism | booktwo.org

James’ shot across the brow of Internet theory orthodoxy.

Ruslan Enikeev’s Map of the Internet Ruslan Enikeev created a searchable Internet map of links and bubbles, showing over 350,000 sites and two million links from 196 countries. Similar sites are closer together. As one might have expected, the largest clusters are formed by national websites, i.e. sites belonging to one country. For the sake of convenience, all websites relative to a certain country carry the same color. For instance, the red zone at the top corresponds to Russian segment of the net, the yellow one on the left stands for the Chinese segment, the purple one on the right is Japanese, the large light-blue central one is the American segment, etc. Importantly, clusters on the map are semantically charged, i.e. they join websites together according to their content. For example, a vast porno cluster can be seen between Brazil and Japan as well as a host of minor clusters uniting websites of the same field or similar purposes.
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Ruslan Enikeev’s Map of the Internet

Ruslan Enikeev created a searchable Internet map of links and bubbles, showing over 350,000 sites and two million links from 196 countries. Similar sites are closer together.

As one might have expected, the largest clusters are formed by national websites, i.e. sites belonging to one country. For the sake of convenience, all websites relative to a certain country carry the same color. For instance, the red zone at the top corresponds to Russian segment of the net, the yellow one on the left stands for the Chinese segment, the purple one on the right is Japanese, the large light-blue central one is the American segment, etc.

Importantly, clusters on the map are semantically charged, i.e. they join websites together according to their content. For example, a vast porno cluster can be seen between Brazil and Japan as well as a host of minor clusters uniting websites of the same field or similar purposes.

internet
Quote IconThe great thing about RSS is that no-one controls it — you can’t buy it, block it or ban it. It adheres to one of the web’s founding principles; “information wants to be free”. Meanwhile Twitter, Facebook and Google’s founding principles are closer to; “information needs to be monetised”.

Apple joins the war on RSS
Gerd Leonhard comments: are we nearing the end of anything that is NOT monetized? (via futuresagency)

When the Pulse Reader vs NYT thing happened, I remember thinking “great. now we’re treating RSS like Napster.”

Sometimes I actually think it would be a good idea to rewind the internet back to 2004.

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1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are.

Douglas Adams - How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet

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House Kills SOPA, PIPA still breathing.

infoneer-pulse:

In a surprise move today, Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to several things. One of those things is that SOPA and PIPA met huge online protest against the bills. Another reason would be that the White House threatened to veto the bill if it had passed. However, it isn’t quite time yet to celebrate, as PIPA(the Senate’s version of SOPA) is still up for consideration.

» via examiner.com

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Hackers Launching Satellite to Evade Internet Censorship

A group of hackers plans to launch a separate internet using amateur satellites and $130 ground stations.

What do you do when Hollywood and the government team up to enforce censorship on the internet with the likes of SOPA and Protect-IP? Launch another government-free internet, of course.

During the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin back in August — an annual hacker conference sponsored by the German Chaos Computer Club — a team of German hackers revealed plans to launch their own communication satellites into space in order to create a separate, “uncensorable” network called the Hackerspace Global Grid (HGG).

“The first goal is an uncensorable Internet in space. Let’s take the Internet out of the control of terrestrial entities,” said activist Nick Farr.

According to the report, the team will start by launching three prototype ground stations in the first half of 2012, and then launch at least one satellite into low orbit to communicate specifically with those stations.

The group stated that the ground stations will cost around $130 USD each to establish, but the satellite itself will require a substantial amount of financial backing, as it will need to hitch a ride with a rocket rather than float up into the cold void via a balloon-based solution. Additional reports claim that the satellite will likely be based on work done to develop low-cost satellites by the Amateur Radio Satellite (AMSAT) association in England and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.

Given the new Internet would eventually rely on an array of low orbit amateur satellites, there’s speculation that the overall network stability would be spotty at best, as these satellites typically orbit every ninety minutes. That means there will be times when they won’t be visible to tracking devices.

Quote IconAt any given moment, our most complicated machine will be taken as a model of human intelligence, and whatever media kids favor will be identified as the cause of our stupidity. When there were automatic looms, the mind was like an automatic loom; and, since young people in the loom period liked novels, it was the cheap novel that was degrading our minds. When there were telephone exchanges, the mind was like a telephone exchange, and, in the same period, since the nickelodeon reigned, moving pictures were making us dumb. When mainframe computers arrived and television was what kids liked, the mind was like a mainframe and television was the engine of our idiocy. Some machine is always showing us Mind; some entertainment derived from the machine is always showing us Non-Mind.

How the Internet Gets Inside Us : The New Yorker

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