"Cybernetic organisms with natural elemental powers collecting masks that give them superpowers while living, initially, on an island inspired by Polynesian myth and then a more ominous cyberpunk city-island."
What a truly brilliant idea. There’s a very good reason Bionicle is still my favourite fictional universe. I still long to create a world as original someday.
Technology has no inherent evils. It is the evil of the man behind the technology that defines how it is perceived.
I want the world to understand computers don’t just do things, they only do what the user tells them to do.
“Digital art is cheating! The computer does it!” No, the user painted it.
“Digital music isn’t real! The computer makes it!” No, the user composed it.
“I don’t know what happened. The computer just started acting weird on its own.” NO, YOU’VE BEEN CLICKING ADS AGAIN, MOM.
Textbooks on computer viruses often describe several ‘generations’ of malicious code. First generation viruses spread from machine to machine by an external disk; they were often ‘add-on’ viruses, which rewrite program code, or ‘boot sector’ viruses, which would install themselves on the computer’s MBR (Master Boot Record) so that, upon restart, the computer would launch from the virus’s code and not the computer’s normal MBR. Early anti-virus programs performed a calculation in which the size of program files were routinely checked for any changes (unlike document files, program files should not change, thus a change in the file size indicated an add-on or other type of virus). Second generation viruses were able to out-maneuver these calculations by either ballooning or pruning program code so that it always remained the same size. Third generation viruses, such as ‘stealth’ viruses, went further, being able to intercept and mimic the antivirus software, thereby performing fake file scans. Fourth generation viruses are the opposite of third generation; they employed ‘junk code’ and ‘attack code’ to carry out multi-pronged infiltrations, in effect overwhelming the computer’s anti-virus software (‘armored’ viruses). However, one anti-virus technique has remained nominally effective, and that is the identification of viruses based on their unique ‘signature’, a string of code that is specific to each virus class. Many anti-virus programs use this approach today, but it also requires a constantly updated record of the most current viruses and their signatures. Fifth generation viruses, or ‘polymorphic’ viruses, integrate aspects of artificial life and are able to modify themselves while they replicate and propagate through networks. Such viruses contain a section of code - a ‘mutation engine’ - whose task is to modify continuously its signature code, thereby evading or at least confusing anti-virus software. They are, arguably, examples of artificial life.
Galloway, A. and Thacker, E. (2006) ‘On Misanthropy’
(via inexistique)
from this?
http://asounder.org/resources/the_exploit_a_theory.pdf
(via ghostlevel)
“To turn away from it now - to stop pursuing a future in which technology and biology combine, leading to the promise of a Singularity - would mean to deny the very essence of who we are.“ ~Adam Jensen
TED: Hugh Herr - The new bionics that let us run, climb and dance
Hugh Herr is building the next generation of bionic limbs, robotic prosthetics inspired by nature’s own designs. Herr lost both legs in a climbing accident 30 years ago; now, as the head of the MIT Media Lab’s Biomechatronics group, he shows his incredible technology in a talk that’s both technical and deeply personal — with the help of ballroom dancer Adrianne Haslet-Davis, who lost her left leg in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and performs again for the first time on the TED stage.
I calculated this two ways: using a computer, and with mad skills.
I used to write all the time. It got a bit hindered when my computer started acting up. I would write for an hour maybe two and then - blue screen.
And I collapse internally.
It’s like being in your favourite place and then someone throws a stone. It doesn’t hit you, it doesn’t hit something dear in the place.. But it ruins the moment, andfor some time you feel uncomfortable being there because it’s no longer the place what takes you in with two arms open. It has a fear to it now.. And that doesn’t go away easily.
