I'm not happy with the AR marker

It's just not right. It feels like a crappy stop gap. It's been
inelegantly implemented. It's just...well...clunky. There's been some
exceptional creative engineering to make it work but it just feels like
something that will be rapidly superseded by better technology.

For example the games that require an AR marker to help them fix on the
surroundings properly will be obselete thanks to PTAM technology and
it's competitors. Sadly the AR SDKs are very expensive and this may get
in the way of proliferation of advanced AR and AN algorithms to make
true ANW applications available sooner.

The problem of cross-platform compatibility and the lack of standards is
also frustrating. It's just like pre-TCP/IP days. This is why the ANW
Forum is so necessary. While the industry dash forward with technology
and new markets the consumer is being forgotten and it'll be a turn off
for many people.

They, like me, just want things that work and work easily. This
technology isn't like the first applications of PCs which really became
succesful through the workplace. There people would have to make
adjustments to use the machines. In the new ANW market it's all about
the consumer and they don't want all the hassle that comes with, say,
open source applications. They want the ease of use and simplicity. I
think more and more people are getting exciting by the potential of the
technology as well as the novelty but, like 3D TV, this wears off
quickly and people won't accept half-arsed applications.

It's this sort of poor implementation that can turn a revolution into a
fad quickly.

AN hairdressing application

This is a relatively simple application I'm sure someone will have
thought of all ready.

It simplifies the process of getting a haircut right. A few women I've
spoken to have had bad experiences where they've told the hairdresser
what they want and they've gotten something else.

With a 3D image of the person - something that can be made using a few
shots from a webcam or something like that - the software would allow a
person to define their style precisely.

It doesn't need to detect their current style, just offer 3D overlay of
the latest and classic haircuts from a pre-established database. This
needs to be accurately overlaid over the 3D image of their head and
torso. Then the customer, perhaps on their own or with the assistance of
the stylist, can make personal adjustments to suit them.

This can be done at home or in a hair salon. The technology required is
relatively simple so this is a realistic application.

What it offers for women and modern men is the chance to see their
haircut before they get it. They can also make sure the hairdresser
understands exactly what they want.

No more nightmare haircuts, ever.

Dopamine hypothesis, major tranquillisers true effects and the use of antipsychotics in the 'treatment' of dementia

I think the dopamine hypothesis is bollocks. Antipsychotics don't really
treat the delusions or hallucinations. They're a chemical cosh. People
don't end up deluded per se when they take cocaine. It makes them
confident, arrogant, loud and expressive. The action of antipsychotics
is to subdue and tranquillise. This is another of the examples of
bullshit in psychiatry.

There's more on the dopamine hypothesis here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_hypothesis_of_schizophrenia

So really they're just a chemical straitjacket. Again and again I make
this point. This isn't what doctors tell patients though.

There's no dopamine hypothesis of dementia. There's research into the
action of dopamine but no consensus hypothesis. This is what the Wiki
page says.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia
"
The overwhelming factor emerging from genetic studies of the dementias
and other central nervous system neurodegenerative conditions is
abnormalities of protein handling.
"

And yet doctors decided to use the drug anyway. Over a hundred thousand
old people were 'treated' using antipsychotics. An observational
research study came out showing the drug was reducing life expectancy in
very old people by 50%. This prompted a Royal College of psychiatry
report which showed 1,800 people were being killed unnecessarily.

The major tranquilliser is a power tool and it's easily used for all
sorts of things. It's important to recognise that the drug is a chemical
straitjacket. It would be safer to use a straitjacket, from the
evidence, but that would be inhumane but the drug achieves the same aim
therefore it is inhumane and it is also dangerous.

Antipsychotics kill. They killed the elderly and they're killing people
with psychotic disorders. They're being used in children. They're being
mixed with antidepressants to create new drugs for treatment resistant
depression. They're forced on people too thanks to the Community
Treatment Order.

Useful site for grabbing video streams

http://keepvid.com/

Neuroskeptic: The Hollow Mask Illusion: Beyond Charlie Chaplin

<http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/04/hollow-mask-illusion-beyond-charlie.html>

Some good coverage of a research paper that shows the schizophrenic
brains aren't fooled by the hollow mask illusion. This famous trick uses
a concave mask but the eyes interpret as a convex shape if the person
has a non-schizophrenic brain. Schizophrenic brains aren't fooled. They
see things as they are.

There's a conclusion to be made here perhaps but I'll let the reader
make their own conclusion after reading the article.

What fascinated me was that I was gutted that I had a 'normal' brain and
was fooled by the illusion.

I love Laing!

Wish I had the time to read it but the Wiki page has to do.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_David_Laing#On_mental_illness>

"
On mental illness

Laing argued that the strange behavior and seemingly confused speech of
people undergoing a psychotic episode were ultimately understandable as
an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations
where this was not possible or not permitted. Laing stressed the role of
society, and particularly the family, in the development of "madness"
(his term). He argued that individuals can often be put in impossible
situations, where they are unable to conform to the conflicting
expectations of their peers, leading to a "lose-lose situation" and
immense mental distress for the individuals concerned. (In 1956, in Palo
Alto, Gregory Bateson and his colleagues Paul Watzlawick, Donald
Jackson, and Jay Haley[16] articulated a related theory of schizophrenia
as stemming from double bind situations where a person receives
different or contradictory messages.) The perceived symptoms of
schizophrenia were therefore an expression of this distress, and should
be valued as a cathartic and trans-formative experience.

Psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers had previously pronounced, in
his work General Psychopathology, that many of the symptoms of mental
illness (and particularly of delusions) were "un-understandable", and
therefore were worthy of little consideration except as a sign of some
other underlying primary disorder. Laing saw psychopathology as being
seated not in biological or psychic organs – whereby environment is
relegated to playing at most only an accidental role as immediate
trigger of disease (the "stress diathasis model" of the nature and
causes of psychopathology) – but rather in the social cradle, the urban
home, which cultivates it, the very crucible in which selves are forged.
This re-evaluation of the locus of the disease process – and consequent
shift in forms of treatment – was in stark contrast to psychiatric
orthodoxy (in the broadest sense we have of ourselves as psychological
subjects and pathological selves). Laing was revolutionary in valuing
the content of psychotic behavior and speech as a valid expression of
distress, albeit wrapped in an enigmatic language of personal symbolism
which is meaningful only from within their situation. According to
Laing, if a therapist can better understand his or her patient, the
therapist can begin to make sense of the symbolism of the patient's
psychosis, and therefore start addressing the concerns which are the
root cause of the distress.

Laing expanded the view of the "double bind" hypothesis put forth by
Bateson and other anthropologists, and came up with a new concept to
describe the highly complex situation that unfolds in the process of
"going mad" - an "incompatible knot". Laing compared this to a situation
where your right hand can exist but your left hand cannot. In this
untenable position, something has got to give, and more often than not,
what gives is psychological stability; a self-destruction sequence is
set in motion.

Laing never denied the existence of mental illness, but viewed it in a
radically different light from his contemporaries. For Laing, mental
illness could be a trans-formative episode whereby the process of
undergoing mental distress was compared to a shamanic journey. The
traveler could return from the journey with (supposedly) important
insights, and may have become (in the views of Laing and his followers)
a wiser and more grounded person as a result. This was consistent with
the critique of the validity of "value judgements" prevalent in Western
society, which was common amongst academics in the 1960s and 1970s (for
example, the views of Michel Foucault).
"

Toxoplasmosis Parasite May Trigger Schizophrenia And Bipolar Disorders

<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090311085151.htm>

It's fascinating the biological things that are hypothesised to cause
psychotic disorders, from caffeine to cannabis and even cats.

Take a closer look at Augmented Reality as Lonely Planet launches Android mobile guides

<http://www.gomonews.com/take-a-closer-look-at-augmented-reality-as-lonely-planet-launches-android-mobile-guides/>

A great application from Lonely Planet

Saving the NHS money in mental healthcare and the placebo effect

Given the evidence the NHS could save vast amounts of money by handing
out sugar pills that look like antidepressants. Package these pills in
the same way and so the patient couldn't tell the difference. Give these
to new patients who've never tried SSRIs so never experienced the side
effects. Literally millions could be saved using the placebo effect of
SSRIs which is often show in high quality reviews to be as effective as
the active narcotic.

Recognizr: Facial Recognition Coming to Android Phones

<http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/recognizr_facial_recognition_coming_to_android_phones.php>

I'd really like to try this application. I thought this technology
wouldn't be available to the consumer for a while. It needs massive
databases of everyone's faces to work. It removes a lot of the need for
geolocation services for passing information between people and would
end the business card's life quicker than the ANW plumbob.

AITIA launches augmented reality motion video & still image shooting app for Android – Mosimo Camera

<http://www.intomobile.com/2010/11/29/augmented-reality-mosimo-camera/>

Possibly the future of consumer photography.

Play augmented reality games on your iPhone | OnSoftware - a few links to some good AN games

<http://en.onsoftware.com/play-augmented-reality-games-on-your-iphone/>

Augmented reality mobile game begins in Dublin... unless you've got an Android

<http://www.gomonews.com/augmented-reality-mobile-game-begins-in-dublin-unless-youve-got-an-android/>

My sense of smugness is high. I'd predicted the treasure hunt game would
be an obvious application in the Articulated Naturality Web.

I'm also somewhat smug that the person couldn't decode the AR marker.
This is where the industry is letting the consumer down. This is why the
Naturality part of the Articulated Naturality concept is so important.
It's got to work.

Augmented Reality Takes Over New York’s Museum of Modern Art - PSFK

<http://www.psfk.com/2010/11/augmented-reality-takes-over-new-yorks-museum-of-modern-art.html>

This is the sort of application I anticipated. In fact I forsaw
galleries becoming available in the Articulated Naturality Web worldwide
rather than still confined to the gallery space.

Sculpture and two dimensional media transfer easily into Articulated
Naturality however the possibility for movement and other forms of
expression make AN art even more exciting. It's really up to the artists
to push their creativity to truly explore the potential of the new
digital medium.

I’m selfish « Beyond This Rainbow; A cool Marilyn Monroe quote from a cool blog

<http://beyondthisrainbow.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/im-selfish/>

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out
of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my
worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." — Marilyn Monroe

A glimpse of how we'll see in the future

This is the most exciting thing coming out of Reikomoto Labs.

Aided Eyes: Eye Activity Sensing for Daily Life
http://lab.rekimoto.org/projects/aided-eyes-eye-activity-sensing-for-daily-life/

"
Our eyes collect a considerable amount of information when we use them
to look at objects. In particular, eye movement allows us to gaze at an
object and shows our level of interest in the object. In this research,
we propose a method that involves real-time measurement of eye movement
for human memory enhancement; the method employs gaze-indexed images
captured using a video camera that is attached to
the user's glasses.

We present a prototype system with an infrared-based corneal limbus
tracking method. Although the existing eye tracker systems track eye
movement with high accuracy, they are not suitable for daily use because
the mobility of these systems is incompatible with a high sampling rate.
Our prototype has small phototransistors, infrared LEDs, and a video
camera, which make it possible to attach the entire system to the
glasses. Additionally, the accuracy of this method is compensated by
combining image processing methods and contextual information, such as
eye direction, for information extraction. We develop an information
extraction system with real-time object recognition in the user's visual
attention area by using the prototype of an eye tracker and a
head-mounted camera.
"

The recent conference paper is interesting.

Yoshio Ishiguro, Adiyan Mujibiya, Takashi Miyaki and Jun Rekimoto, Aided
Eyes: Eye Activity Sensing for Daily Life, The 1st Augmented Human
International Conference (AH2010), Megève, France, 2010.
http://rekimotolab.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/ae-ah2010.pdf

Of course the next step is contact lenses. That's something for another
post.

How happy would you be if you earned £150,000

I met a friend a while back and found out he earns over £150,000 a year.
He's in his early thirties. I think a lot of people would assume he was
pretty happy. I don't know whether he's happy or not but I doubt it.
Research has shown there is an increase it what the study authors
defined as happiness up to a salary equivalent to £40,000 a year but
after that the rate of increase sharply reduced.

I have no expectation that money brings happiness because I feel that is
based on the idea that being able to get what you want is the route to
happiness. I think the Buddhist principle of relating desire to
unhappiness is important because increasing wealth doesn't solve the
problem of new desires. I don't wholly agree with it but its a useful
observation that a person without desire and want will not be unhappy
though they would be severely disadvantaged in the modern world. This is
why Buddhist monks live in monasteries and don't work in offices.

This may be why many people in modern society in developed countries are
unhappy. People have wealth they can't see because they are used to it.
The rat race, the treadmill, keeping up with the Jones or whatever other
term describes what I see in my head as a hamster in a wheel doesn't
seem to lead to high levels of happiness. A goal met is empty in other
words. Once the challenge is met the next challenge is the goal. Without
the goals life can seem to lack purpose but this is is a
misunderstanding of what life actually is.

An Argentinan writer and thinker called Borques (probably not how his
name is spelt) wrote about the maze of life. He describes what life
really is as a corridor. The mind creates the maze because the mind
needs the maze. Without it a person will only see the corridor. So
people create goals to give their life a purpose, to create the maze so
they have a challenge and because seeing life as a corridor can be too
much for the untrained mind or a mind trained to expect the maze.
Borques points out the paths in the mind's construct of the maze of life
all lead to one place: the corridor.

The problem of human happiness is now becoming a government priority in
the developed world. Whether this is genuinely something new or just
another word for mental health is yet to be seen. There's strong
evidence that Western cultures have significantly higher levels of
mental disorder in the population. High quality lifetime prevalence
epidemiological studies have shown sharp contrasts between very poor and
very rich countries levels of mental disorder with mental disorder in
the USA two or three times higher than the rate in Nigeria.

My friend owns a designer flat in Kensington. He parties in the top
nightclubs in London. His annual bonus might be more than I've earned in
a decade. But there are still things he can't have. There are still
things that annoy him. He's used to the things he has and, in his
environment, there are other people who have more. He works very hard
for his money and has to sacrifice a lot to get it.

Admittedly he may not have the problems of someone who earns £15,000 a
year. But there are people on those salaries who are happier than he.
These are people who have found greater truths about life. True wealth
is not money, it's what you have in life and how you make your life what
you want. Money is an enabler but it also adds to the stress.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I'm such a fucking loser.

What happens if treatment is worse than the disease?

The use of Interferon in the treatment of MS makes me think of this. A
lit review says the effects are worse than the effect of the disease on
the patient. It's the same in the use of Interferon to treat Hep C.

Increasing corporate tax worldwide

The IMF has imposed many conditions on Ireland as part of the bailout.
One is an increase of corporate tax.

http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2010/11/ireland-irish-spain-european

Everyone apart from the politicians and the senior echelons of the
corporations are in favour of this. It's the big corporations, namely
the banks in this case, that are being blamed for the current global
financial crisis.

Countries are reluctant to increase corporate tax because they fear
corporations won't invest in their economies. But what if it happened
across the world? This is the sort of thing that could pay for more jobs
to be created.

Microsoft's Skinput turns hands, arms into buttons - CNN.com

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/19/microsoft.skinput/index.html?hpt=C2

This is similar to MIT's Six Sense project and is showing how we might
be using technology in the future. The Six Sense project used a person's
palm rather than their arm which might make a bit more sense.

This is the Microsoft page on their technology
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/cue/skinput/

And a link to an award winning paper.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/cue/publications/HarrisonSkinputCHI2010.pdf
Chris Harrison, Desney S Tan, Dan Morris
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2010 (Best paper award)

It's extraordinary what can go into a font design

http://ilovetypography.com/2010/10/10/the-making-of-acorde-2/

This is a font that took 5 years to design. It's fascinating to see the
level of detail that goes into font design. It's truly an art form when
it gets to this level.

The Insanity Virus | Mental Health | DISCOVER Magazine

This is absolutely extraordinary. Schizophrenia and bipolar may be
caused by a retrovirus, a special sort of virus that passed down through
the generations and activated by certain stressors. It may also be
responsible for MS.

This is totally biomedical stuff which is why I find it fascinating.

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jun/03-the-insanity-virus/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

The link to the research paper is
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18760403
"
RESULTS: In schizophrenic patients, positive antigenemia for ENV was
found in 23 of 49 (47%) and for GAG in 24 of 49 (49%). Only 1 of 30 (3%)
for ENV and 2 of 49 (4%) for GAG were positive in blood donors (p < .01
for ENV; p < .001 for GAG). Interestingly, bioclinical data analyses
revealed significant correlation between GAG or ENV antigenemia (a
protein causing dysimmune inflammatory effects) and C-reactive protein
(CRP) levels (a systemic inflammation biomarker).

CONCLUSIONS: Frequently elevated CRP has previously been described in
schizophrenic patients and has been shown to match with an evolution
toward cognitive deficit and neuronal loss. Elsewhere viruses such as
influenza, long-associated with risk for schizophrenia through perinatal
infections, have been shown to activate HERV-W elements in human cells.
We therefore discuss a relationship between environment factors
long-associated with early risk, genetic factors represented by this
endogenous family, the production of its pro-inflammatory ENV protein
and known "inflammation-mediated" neurotoxicity, as a possible
hypothesis for a pathogenic cascade in association with HERV-W. Our
present results thus confirm that HERV-W studies have opened a novel
avenue of research in schizophrenia.
"

The birth month effect in schizophrenia and bipolar

Noted in This article
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jun/03-the-insanity-virus/article_view?b_start%3Aint=0&-C

Several studies point to babies born in winter or early spring have a
small but significant chance of becoming schizophrenic or manic depressive.

"
Schizophrenia is usually diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 25, but
the person who becomes schizophrenic is sometimes recalled to have been
different as a child or a toddler—more forgetful or shy or clumsy.
Studies of family videos confirm this. Even more puzzling is the
so-called birth-month effect: People born in winter or early spring are
more likely than others to become schizophrenic later in life. It is a
small increase, just 5 to 8 percent, but it is remarkably consistent,
showing up in 250 studies. That same pattern is seen in people with
bipolar disorder or multiple sclerosis.

"The birth-month effect is one of the most clearly established facts
about schizophrenia," says Fuller Torrey, director of the Stanley
Medical Research Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. "It's difficult to
explain by genes, and it's certainly difficult to explain by bad mothers."
"

The shopping experience in ANW

Ever been into a large shop and you just want one thing but have no idea
where to find it? Surly or non-existent staff are no use. Time is wasted
searching around the shop.

The shopping experience will totally change as it did with internet
shopping. From the moment the user determines they need a product the
Articulated Naturality shopping application takes over the little
details. User preference systems or manual entry determine a shopper's
preference - for large supermarkets or locally sourced products,
internet or offline shops, price or quality of service and other
variables are all catered for automatically. The system guides the user
to the shop or online service. It will eventually take the shopper to
the right aisle and perhaps even the shelf once the systems get more
accurate and shops start adding location data.

Our lives are busy and this sort of application has the utility to be a
big hit.

GPS on iPad

I really do hope Apple sort out an assisted-GPS system for the iPad. I'm
sure they will. It's obviously really. Ipads will be used inside homes
and perhaps offices. They may not always get a good or accurate GPS fix.
They'll need accelorometers to work out where they are within a building
and get an accurate fix on position within a room to use the potential
of location information to best effect.

They'll also need to know the layout of a house, i.e. which room is the
kitchen and which is the living room. I'm sure the people at Apple are
working on how to make this a simple process. I can image it will take
some sort of setup procuedre where the user takes the device into each
room, stands in the middle and turns 360 degrees around so the camera
can recognise the room. The user will also have to manually input what
sort of room it is but once this is done the device should be ready for
Articulated Naturality home applications.

I just can't believe that there's no hype about assisted-GPS. This
technology is perhaps as vital as fast processors or 3D mobile APIs for
enabling the Articulated Naturality Web.

Guess Her Muff the monsters who call themselves the human race

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Nexus S Spotted in the Wild Running Gingerbread

http://www.blogsdna.com/14107/nexus-s-spotted-in-the-wild-running-gingerbread.htm

The spec of the latest high end smartphones is extraordinary,

"
Dual Core Orion 1GHz CortexA9 processor
Open GL ES Supported
512 or 328MB Ram (Not 100% known)
1GB or 2GB Internal Memory (Not 100% known)
800×480 Screen Resolution
4? Screen Size
SuperAmoled2 – Possibly
720P HD Video
"

The lack one important feature: assisted-GPS. It's great to pack a dual
core chip and an mobile version of the Open GL graphics API but without
assisted-GPS the 3D overlay is going to be limited to image recongition
rather than GPS location.

Discover your community - DISQUS

Blog commenting system. Integrates with most blog platforms.

http://disqus.com/

Antoine Dodson plays pitchman for Sex Offender Tracker app | BGR | Boy Genius Report

http://www.bgr.com/2010/10/25/antoine-dodson-plays-pitchman-for-sex-offender-tracker-app/

This is osrt of what I was afraid of. An application to identify sex
offenders. I'd been writing a thinking piece on an Articulated
Naturality application for stopping paedophiles preying on children.

I used to work in Children's Services so this sort of application
initially seemd like a good idea, except for the problem of what the
public might to paedophiles. It's a terrible thing they do but the ones
that get caught get punished by the criminal justice system. Apps like
this cvould be used to punish them further in the community. There's no
other way to protect people from repeat sex offenders though. Just hope
people don't use this to start their own system of punishment.

New iPad 2.0 to include front-facing camera, new display, & USB port

http://www.blogsdna.com/14132/new-ipad-2-0-to-include-front-facing-camera-new-display-usb-port.htm

Apple's next iPad should be Articulated Naturality-ready. The first iPad
had a slot for a front facing camera in the chassis but this wasn't used
in production models.

Jeff Foster

http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/

Debt and death

Debt's associated with suicide. Repayment of bad debt puts people in the
prison of poverty. It is a form of punishment. It is a severe punishment.

Poverty is associated with poor health - mental and physical. It's worse
in a way for people who have to work and still get no reward for their work.

Many studies show this. Bad debt creates mental and physical illness
through direct and indirect effects.

I wonder if people who work in debt collecting agencies care that
they're indirectly causing death and illness. They know they create
distress.

And yet they're allowed to do it. Modern society seems happy enough to
let people suffer for making mistakes in their finances. People are
encouraged to take on debt. People who are bad with their money are
targeted because there's more opportunity to make money. People with
good credit ratings manage their finances well so don't incur bank
charges. As a person's credit history gets worse they may be offered
more debt (to a point) at higher interest rates.

Then the time comes when they can't pay off their debts. They can't meet
the minimum monthly payments. The bad debt spiral begins. This is know
about but the finance industry doesn't care. They depend on consumer
debt just as they depend on gambling on markets to make millions and
billions for their shareholders.

They do this on the blood and bones of the people. They cause death,
suffering and illness. And they get bonuses for doing it.

Training people to care for dementia

When the doctors in the UK prescribed the chemical cosh for people with
dementia they unnecessarily killed 1,800 people every year. The purpose
of the medication was to sedate people without putting them to sleep.
The purpose is to do the same role as a straitjacket but using a toxic
neurochemical. A straitjacket would be safer but there would be public
outcry. The public have been fooled into thinking that behaviour is an
illness and the drugs are used to treat illness.

Twenty or thirty years ago no one would have thought to use the chemical
cosh on very old people. The drugs were designed to sedate only those
with psychotic disorders. People accepted the symptoms.

Modern 'medicine' gave the option of using the chemical cosh on old
people and killed many. The dementia strategy has been revised
thankfully and now GPs are measured on how few antipsychotics they
prescribe however they haven't been banned. The straitjacket is safer
however I have no intention of getting that approved as a 'treatment'
for dementia.

There's an option. It's the option that psychiatrists don't consider.
It's about changing society. It's about understanding that it's carers
and care home staff who desire the medicalisation of behaviour.

People could be given training and support to handle people with
dementia symptoms rather than let old people be murdered using
antipsychotics. An ex-colleauge of mine told me of a friend of hers
who'd been somewhat terrorised by her partner who was going through
dementia. His delusion was World War Two was still happening. He thought
the Germans were outside the window. He'd make her crawl around on all
fours to avoid the imaginary enemy soldiers.

This must have been a terrible experience for her. I'm sure many people
could understand that. I'm not sure she'd want to kill her partner using
antipsychotics nor would she want to see him in a straitjacket. I'm sure
she wouldn't want to be forced to crawl along on all fours nor for her
husband to be in a state where he wasn't in touch with reality.

She could be trained to handle him better though and perhaps, if
possible, he may be able to be trained or given therapy to help him
recognise it was a delusion. I know it's much cheaper to give a person a
pill but it's inhumane and it kills them quicker.

Other interventions may be crisis dementia teams to help with difficult
situations in the community. Again, this is more expensive than using a
pill that reduces life expectancy and serves the same purpose as a
straitjacket.

I don't know if it would be effect or not but it would be better to look
for these sort of solutions It's somewhat alien thinking for psychiatry
though. They, like teenage ravers, love drugs.

The naked app

This is the sort of application that will be very popular with lad
culture. It's the sort of application that will viral because people
will want to show it off to their friends. The novelty may wear of
quickly which is why it may be a marketing or promotional application
rather than one people might buy.

Simple it does the stuff of science fiction. It makes people naked.

It doesn't require much from phone hardware. A good camera, the video
screen and a processor with 3D optimisation should be enough.

Digital cameras already feature face detection algorithms and they're
pretty accurate. Identifying a body beneath the head shouldn't be too
hard. With the elements of the body identified it's easy enough to
overlay a naked form in the video view.

The more difficult part is the orientation and body position of the
person. This application will work when people are walking straight at
the user but if they're sitting down or at an oblique angle to the
camera the application needs to be able to identify this and render the
overlay image appropriately. This makes the application much more complex.

But it's a gimmick application. It's the sort of think certain companies
that use sex to advertise, e.g. Lynx, would want to use. It doesn't need
to be totally robust because it's just a bit of fun. It will viral very
well though.

A quick rant on the privilege of medicine and psychiatry and inhumanity

The greatest punishment that developed society does to someone is to
remove their liberty. Incarceration is punishment for a serious crimes.
The criminal justice system bases itself upon the edict of innocent
until proven guilty. The burden of the prosecution is to prove guilt
whereas the defence essentially has an easier role.

Psychiatry uses the same punishment in healthcare. It's based on an
assessment of risk and immediate risk. Beyond mental disorder people are
usually sectioned if they're a risk to someone else or themselves.

It seems innocent until proven guilty is irrelevant for psychiatry. This
is another example of how the privilege of medicine allows bad things to
happen to the mentally ill. There's is no burden of proof or psychiatric
'guilt' required. There is no jury or due process. There's just the
judgement of the psychiatrist at the time. They could be having a bad
day and just section someone on a whim just like I've been acute
tranquillised (knocked unconscious by an injection of Haliperidol)
because a nurse was angry with me.

The there's the crime of mental illness itself. Is it really an illness?

Let's say in100 years time society has evolved to understand that people
are different but each is valuable. People may still suffer and want
their suffering relieved while others may want to go through suffering
because they feel it serves a purpose. There may be a behavioural
control system, a system that is true to what it is and doesn't hide
under the privilege of medicine. There would be precise laws just like
the criminal justice system to ensure that people aren't harmed because
of society at the time's judgements.

What may be left are genuine neurological conditions but many of the
supposed mental illnesses, like homosexuality was, will have been
demedicalised and the beginning of the 21st century will be looked back
on as a time when great evils were wrought upon normal people who were
given labels like bipolar and schizophrenia.

Right now the privilege of medicine is used to pull the wool over
people's eyes. It's used to confuse and confound them and trust that
doctors would never do things that they would think are wrong, for
example masturbating women with hysteria. Things that can't be done in
prisons or in prisoner of war detention camps are being done to people
in psychiatric wards by doctors and nurses. The Human Rights Act doesn't
seem to apply to the mad.

I know I'm hypomanic because my love life is a bit better

Its' funny. I've had to develop lots of personal measures to notice
changes in mood. One of them is my sleep pattern. Anything less than 6
hours a day for a prolonged period is a warning sign.

Another one is my love life. Usually it's fairly desolate unless I'm in
a high state. In depression I'm alone. In depression I don't hold my
head up high. I don't talk much. I don't express in the way I do when
I'm in a high state. I don't take care of my appearance. I don't shower.

I need to recognise these things because I self-manage my condition and
have been for many years. The hypomania has come at a useful time where
I need to do a lot of work and in previous hypomanic times I've managed
to do an inordinate amount of work and still party hard.

And the moment I think exhaustion is keeping me off any major problems.
I think the alcohol is also helping. I'm used to the alcohol depression
when I'm depressed. I know where it comes from. Now I'm a bit higher the
alcohol is acting as an anti-mania drug.

It's very hard to live like this but it's a bit like surfing. I can only
learn to ride the wave, as I've done before, by taking this risk. I may
crash but that's how people learn and I've learned a lot. Most people
never get the opportunity to surf a big wave. They live their lives by
the shore.

The wave of mania can be electric. It can be very useful in certain
roles and industries too. My fear is the crash. Or even worse, societies
punishments for different behaviour and emotional experience.

The mentally ill will be overrepresented in those who lose their jobs in the next 4 years

Already the mentally ill are disadvantaged in employment because of the
valuation of automotons (robot-like human beings). Companies will seek
to keep employees that are like robots, emotionless lumps of flesh that
might as well be metal. They will be actively discriminated. People with
other disabilities may also be discriminated against.

I'm pretty sure the charity sector will also discriminate in the say
way. Even the mental health charities. Many organisations don't actively
attempt to check that they're not discriminating but they do. Certainly
at one organisation I worked at an administration review indirectly
discriminated against people with families (usually women), carers, the
elderly and the disabled by ring-fencing posts as full-time that were
covered by part-time employees. It may have been a deliberate attempt to
get rid of certain members of staff dressed as a necessity for full-time
positions. Once made aware that they were indirectly discriminating
there was a u-turn however this organisation and many others chose to
continue to discriminate by offering full time posts only when these
could be done as job shares.

In light of this example of the lack of idealism and adherence to the
principles of discrimination and disability from organisations that
campaign for the disabled I'm fairly certain that I'd be right in the
title of this post. I wonder if anyone will even bother to think about
stuff like this?

Antidepressants can be used for behavioural modification

I can't listen to this podcast because I'm stuck in safe mode still but
the text makes for interesting reading. It's an example of how mental
health is an acceptable way to enforce behavioural and societal norms
and call it medicine. I don't why doctors would even both researching
this. They're meant to be treating illness, not handing out pills to
make people moral.

It's an ad hominen argument but I'll make it any way. This is the sort
of thing that Hitler or Stalin would be proud of inventing. Controlling
behaviour but calling it medicine. It's the same reason why black men
are killed quicker using antipsychotic medication and the diagnosis of
schizophrenia. It's about behavioural norms. It's nothing to do with
medicine and illness.

For fuck's sake. What's the science of morality? There isn't one.
There's little absoluteness in morality and if there ever was a
consideration of this then they might find that the mentally ill, in the
main, have a considerable higher true sense of morality (i.e. one that's
something that holds true over centuries rather than decades). What a
waste of funding.

What's immoral is labelling homosexuality a mental illness and the
things that doctors did to people who they ajudged as different.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vkxm2

"
Molly Crockett from the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute
at the University of Cambridge says how a particular group of anti
depressants, SSRIs, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, have been
found to increase morality by raising the levels of Serotonin in the brain.
"

I wonder how the charity sector is doing in the recession

I haven't been keeping up with the news but I wonder if charities are
facing hardship too. It's logical that many people will reduce the
amount they donate when times are tough. Given the way the current
crisis and the CSR cuts are going I fear the worst. I fear that many
charities may go bankrupt. The charity model was slowly evolving towards
new ways of fundraising other than typical donations, e.g. providing
services such as Mind Workplace or offering credit cards (RSPCA) and
using systems like everyclick. But these are new revenue generation
channels, they're Stars rather than Cash Cows. Regular giving has always
been the bread and butter of charities.

Of course there are charity shops and more people will be using them as
more people experience poverty though Primark and other very low cost
retailers may end up taking market share away from charity shops. They
have the marketing nouce available whereas charities, in general, are
full of good hearted people who know little about business.

Their services will be desperately needed. I think that the application
of Keynesian economic theory could be altered to fund job creation in
the charity sector rather than boosting infrastructure as is typically
expected from countries following established economic practice.

We don't need more trains. We need more support for the poor because
there's going to be so many more in the next four years.

Usability and utility in AN and ANW

In the early dotcom boom there was a guru who focused the industry on
consumer usability, Jakob Nielsen While many dotcommers focused on
novelty without any recourse to considering the consumer experience he
drove forth the science and the movement for useful design.
http://www.useit.com/jakob/

His website was exceptionally popular and his Alertbox column was the
source of great web wisdom.
http://www.useit.com/
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/

Rather than focus on fancy graphics and novel moving images he focused
on important aspects of web design related to utility. In my opinion he
wasn't enough of a firebrand but he was firm in his opinions and his
opinions lead the field. Today he's still leading the field and is now
moving his attention to the technologies involved in the Articulated
Naturality Web. His latest book is on eye tracking usability.
http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/

The augmented and Articulated fields are in a similar point in their
development to the internet pre-dotcom. People don't really know what to
do with the technology. Novelty rules the roost and utility takes a back
seat. This is beyond usability concerns alone. This is about the
application of technology. For example the AR business card simply
doesn't work for me. This was one of the big AR stories last year but it
feels short of utility. Two people standing in close proximity with a
smartphone have many ways to transfer their details across. Admittedly
this lacks the novelty factor of an animation in the ANW but there are
still options to provide that. A halfway house to a decent
implementation would be an AR marker generated on a person's smartphone
screen then the other user can recognise it using their phone. The
ultimate implementation is the AN profile access button hovering above
someone in the ANW or some other more elegant way to pass information
once assisted GPS sensors allow for accurate geolocation.
http://jamesalliban.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/ar-business-card/

There are noteworthy exceptions to the low utility AR applications that
the consumer is experiencing.
http://perspectives.3ds.com/virtualreality/augmented-reality-goes-postal/

Low utility can be a turn off to the consumer but not to early adopters.
Obviously the novelty factor is a big selling point but this wears off
and it's utility that rules. Consider Facebook or Google's success. I
remember a time before Google where the meta-search engine ruled the
roost but Google's high efficient ranking algorithm and distributed
processing architecture that allowed the algorithm to work with billions
of pages drove its success. AN is the future but it will take longer for
consumer buy-in unless there's a real everyday use.

Already our interaction with digital information is weak in real human
usability terms. The evolution to Human 2.0 and the Naturality aspect of
Articulated Naturality is all about this evolution to an organic
interface with digital information and survives. This is the brilliance
of Steve Chao's concept. In 2009 he struck on the ANW renaissance as
bringing forth a revolution in humankind and computer-human interaction.

We all have to conform to the interface of the machine. Keyboards. Mice.
2D monitors. It should be the other way round. Our machines should be
designed for us.

The AR marker is a stepping stone but it's a poor one. It still means we
have to conform to technology. It's inelegant and, at the moment, the
utility is low apart from marketing applications and the odd game.
Consumer utility and usability is paramount in the AN renaissance. It's
about the people becoming empowered by rather than be slaves to the
computer.

Does the consumer find it useful? This should be the question posed of
every AN application before it dares to take the moniker of a true
Articulated Naturality application.

Anything less can suck on my chocolate salty balls.

Seems like me and Qualcomm think alike

http://www.cellpassion.com/2010/07/09/qualcomm-ups-ars-coolness-quotient/
"
Last week, we reported how Qualcomm is betting its chips on Augmented
Reality (AR) by announcing an SDK and a developer contest. Well, here is
a short video how AR can (and will) change the way we play games on our
phones.
"

There's a video on the web page too. I'd also suggested a contest for
people to think up an ANW application but my idea was focused on the
geekosphere and researchers rather than developers. You can see ho bias
influences my thinking.

The killer application

This is the application that gets people into AN and ANW.

I'm talking about Goldeneye on the N64. Guitar hero on the Playstation.
Or, perhaps the best example, Wii Fit.

They're what consumers buy hardware for.
They're what they tell their friends about.
When I see someone with a suitable smartphone it's the application I
want to tell them about and know that they'll be wowed by it.

Whoever discovers this has the Holy Grail in the development of AN and
ANW. It's what'll get people who aren't interested interested. It'll be
what gets people buying the hardware.

In the examples above I've chosen three gaming killer applications. This
was unconscious however I think this is where the killer application
will be. It's what'll make people go "wow!"

CSR cuts: job creation

I wish Gordon Brown was in power. The country would be in safer hands
with an economic genius at the helm. His fiscal policy which kept down
national debt saved the UK inspite of the economies high dependence on
the financial markets.

instead we've got a fucking moron in power, a rich one but a moron
nonetheless. Gutting the public sector of jobs is leading to many more
people out of work. The CSR job cuts are the opposite of what good
policy is during a recession.

A recession is all about reduced productivity. It's all about
unemployment and inactivity. The private sector usually cuts back on
staff to protect the organisation in hard times. Everyone spends less.
There's less tax revenue with increased joblessness. It's a vicious
cycle that ends up with more and more people in poverty.

Already jobs and hours are being cut. Organisations are slashing
budgets. This Christmas may be a tipping point. Last year saw Woolworths
go out of business. January may see many other big names go bankrupt.

The most important thing for the future of the UK, in my opinion, is a
job creation scheme. Nothing else will save the people.

Jobs create jobs. People with jobs pay tax and spend money. This creates
more jobs. The opposite, cutting jobs, creates less jobs as the Price
Waterhouse Coopers report shows. 500,000 private sector workers are
expected to become out of work because of the 490,000 public sector
workers being axed. There'll be an impact on the charity sector too
though this is the sector that's going to be most important in the next
few years. They're the ones who'll be helping the poor as the welfare
state becomes overstretched.

At the moment a lot of people are going to be experiencing poverty and
unemployment. There are so many reasons this is a bad thing.

I wish Gordon Brown was still in power because he'd slap up David
Cameron for the job cuts. This is the worst economic crisis in modern
times. Whole countries are going bankrupt.

Keynesian economics seems to mean that job creation is the only way out
of a recession or a major war. This has to be on the national agenda. It
is insane to cut jobs because that makes the recession worse. People
need jobs. It keeps them and the nation healthy.

But what do I know eh? I'm just a fucking, angry alcoholic.

An important message from a producer at BBC Scotland

I've been thinking and rethinking these words. They're very important.
"I don't want to have to learn about it."

She was talking about technology. I think her sentiment echoes a lot of
what the consumer feels. They just want things that work and work for
them. They don't care about all the revolutionary qualities or the fact
that whatever technology is the future. People want to get on with their
lives, not learn about whatever new technology fad excites the technorati.

Echoing Steve Jobs message to Apple I'd say this to the augmented
reality and Articulated Naturality industry, "make them so simple I
don't have to learn anything to use them."

Buying a feeling

I watched an older woman doing a very hard job last night. She was
wheeling out the delivery from the front of the pub I was in to the
storage area. She worked hard but I bet she got paid little more than
minimum wage. I think she's usually kitchen staff. Were she bar staff
she's not the sort of person who would get lots of drinks bought for
her. She was old and black. All the staff in the pub were young, pretty
white girls.

I went to the bar after a bit and ordered her a drink. A large glass of
wine. I didn't know her name and neither did any of the other bar staff.
She's one of those people that other people don't bother to talk to or
find out their name. I asked the bar staff not to tell her which
customer bought her the drink. It was something I wanted her to feel was
a good thing with no strings attached. Just another person recognising
hard work and giving something to someone else.

I did it for one reason. I needed to feel good about myself. I
consciously decided to do this for the simple reason that by doing a
good thing for another person I might make her a little happier.

Even now I'm still having to force myself to take a good feeling for
this good deed. It was only a few pounds. She may not drink. I should do
doing more for people like her. But I can take small pleasure in this
little good deed.

People spend lots of money on products because it buys them a feeling.
Obviously alcohol is something people buy because it makes them feel
better and helps them have fun. It's the same for clothes. Gadgets.
Certain brands. People buy things to make themselves feel.

I got over a lot of my materialism thanks to life crisis. But I seem to
have invented a new materialism of me, an emotional materialism based on
pseudo-altruism. I do what I do for charity and the greater good because
it keeps me alive. I can do little deeds like this because it makes me
feel better than wearing a tailor made suit I custom designed or having
the latest laptop.

You know what? I prefer this sort of emotional materialism. I prefer
recognising that most materialism is just buying a feeling. Being this
direct about it makes more sense to me. It's a lot cheaper and perhaps
it's a lot better too.

Can bad people do good things

Someone put this question to me but out of kindness I didn't explain how
obvious the answer was.

I can imagine that certain charities who promote gender prejudice do it
for a good reason and they only employ good people. Those who aren't
good people are bad people.

And bad people must only do bad things. After all. We've all seen
cartoons where the bad character only does bad things.

The reality is so fucking different it's untrue. People want easy
labels. People want to feel like they, in their judgement, do good
things by what they and their organisatioon does. And in another way bad
people may percieve or justify what they do as good when they are really
doing bad. Hitler did worse than promote a gender prejudice but he did
for a good reason.

So can bad people do good things? I fucking hope so otherwise I'm lost.
I'm a bad person.

Happy days

I'm like...well a researcher without heart or a copper who punisihes
unnecessarily. Don't care really. Just happy being who I am. LOL.

Socialisation in ANW

After my physic teacher at school first showed me the World Wide Web I
was hooked. Almost 15 years ago I started the Internet club at school
back when the word internet was capitalised. I knew this was the future.

I couldn't guess at the marketisation of the internet. I didn't expect
everyone else to become interested in what I was interested in. It made
sense to sell books online but I couldn't believe that people would buy
clothes online. But around the turn of the new millenium the dotcom
industry exploded. In 2010 we're about to see another explosion of
technology the computing technorati have been aware of for a while but
the people new little about.

I certainly couldn't have imagined Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and rheir
ilk. This is the modern mini-revolution. The social network revolution.
I percieved the value of easy interconnection between people spread
across the world but assumed that would be achieved by email rather than
whole new platforms and technologies developed.

Now I'm trying once again to peer into the murky future of technology.
My crystal ball is still murky but I feel that socialisation will take a
step forward in the ANW.

The simplest thing is the transfer of personal details. People still
have to enter contact details when they're standing next to each other.
Bluetooth hasn't really taken off in the UK for whatever reason. The AR
business card with a marker on was a big viral last year. It feels just
as easy for a marker to appear on one person's screen and the other to
use their camera to recognise it however perhaps I'm missing something
in AR marker technology.

In the ANW with accurate location information it will be much simpler.
People can opt to have an icon appear on demand or permanaently
displayed above them in the ANW virtual space. A person need only click
on the icon on their screen or with finger point recognition they can
gesture at the icon and get the details instantly into their PIM system.

A lot of people are lazy in their socialisation. While Facebook allows
people to keep in touch across the world it doesn't make meeting people
nearby easier. New proximity social network platforms will bring
likeminded people in the local area closer together. Sites like
meetup.com may already be considering making their site AN-ready so
people can meet up conveniently in their region.

Things may go a step further. People may start buying clothes that only
exist in the ANW. This may meld with Second Life. People want to dress
well to impress and to show off. At the cutting edge of fashion this is
taken to an extreme. There's no reason why a fashion designer shouldn't
extend their garments into the virtal space of the ANW. It's a wholly
new medium for them to explore and it 's boundless in creative options.
AN clothing can move and flicker in time to the music like a cyberdog
shirt. After all, such frivolity is used by animals when seeking a
partner. The dance music scene still enjoys an enamour with creative
clothing with each genre and generation having a different style. Glow
sticks may be replaced by FFT algorithms that make exciting patterns in
time to the music in the ANW for people around to see and often with the
intention of attracting a mate. Such people may also turn on their AN
identifier so people can get their details to meet them after the rave
or gig.

There will be more though. I think this has been such a growth area in
the internet and it will continue into the ANW future. For example AN
telepresence where avatars replace the human form may be what people
want instead of video calls. A person can always present a perfect
image, easier done with voice than with real visual imagery, but even
easier with an electronic mask that responds humanly to emotions and
gestures but has perfect skin and perfect looks - even when the person
has just got out of bed.

YouTube - Sebastião Salgado

A slideshow of one of my favourite photographers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-340pShYaXE&feature=player_embedded

The reality of a 3D workspace and how interaction using organic systems may be the future

AN headsets make the potential for digital overlay on the real world a
possibility within the next decade or two. Most importantly they allow
for handsfree operation. I expect devices to have eye tracking features
as well as digital overlay on the real world. Two cameras give the
headset stereoscopic view of the real world to make overlay accurate.
They also allow for finger tip recognition combined with eye tracking.

Combining all these system with fast pervasive computing and internet
connection will deliver astounding leaps in interface with electronic
environments. Users will have an extraordinary range of new interaction
opportunties, for example the interface could be purely digital without
any reference to real world objects or they could become intune with the
environment around.

Imagine a folder navigation system that appears on the leaves of a
plant. This maintains the tactility of the keyboard. A musical
instrument could be made the same way with a plant and a program that
can recognise hand gestures. People can being to seek to play objects
around them. A fern is no longer a fern but an opportunity to play with
a new interface. Perhaps the future may involve people walking over to a
house plant while wearing their AN headset and tapping on the leaves to
activate music replay. Or walking over to another plant to control the
heating system.

It's unnecessary for people to need to use plants or other objects to
interact with a future ANW workspace but humans don't live by utility
alone, otherwise we'd all own the same IBM PC. People want variety and
beauty in their computing which is why there's a cornucopia of different
designs and novelty items.

The AN renaissance is, in part, about turning back the clock on the way
we interact with our environment to a more organic feel. The utility of
the technology is vital but humanity wants more.

This sounds like a crazy idea - people choosing to use plants rather
than simply use a wholly digital workspace. It's my bias perhaps. Almost
10 years ago I answer a question on "What is the future of computing?"
asked by the now long gone winmag.com. My answer was the one that got
published. If I remember right it went along the lines of
"A wooden keyboard plugged into a flower pot with no syntax error
because it knows exactly what you mean and loves you unconditionally...."

People have always wanted more from their products than utility.

Business card service with 48hr delivery

http://www.overnightprints.co.uk/businesscards

5 Innovative Technologies Changing Health Care [VIDEOS]

http://mashable.com/2010/11/24/health-care-tech/

Not the most futuristic of innovations but lots of practical ones.

Handsfree Articulated Naturality computer desktops

This is still a way off yet but devices like the MIT Six Sense project
combined with AN headsets will pave the way for a new desktop interface.

A video of the MIT Six Sense project gives an idea of the future. This
is a proof-of-concept project.
http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

The Minority Report-style computer systems where people can touch
information windows and move them around as necessary in the 3D
environment are the future and beyond novelty they allow users to
interact with information quicker than ever before. City traders are
already using multi-screen 2D desktops because their information needs
are considerable. They'll be the first to pay for anything that will
give them an advantage and I think they'll be excited by the prospect of
rapidly being able to work with large amounts of data displayed in the
3D space. Anything for the edge.

In pictures: The world's best underwater photographs 2010 | Environment | guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/nov/09/underwater-photography-2010?intcmp=239#/?picture=368478387&index=6

These are amazing.

Life Expectancy in China Rising Slowly, Despite Economic Surge - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/global/24leonhardt.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

I like the term Mortality Revolution. It seems China's economic
revolution is not mirrored by a Mortality Revolution. The article isn't
quite fair. I'm glad he notes the US is also poor at increasing life
expectancy.

This is what I think is important though, and more than life expectancy
it's about reducing the mortality gap. It's also about quality of life.
This, for me, is more important. It's about quality rather than
quantity. It's why smoking is important as are recreational drugs. They
make life better.

We could all live like saints eating pure organic food with no chemicals
and never leave our homes to keep life expectancy long. Or we can live
and enjoy and risk to enjoy. Such is life!

My first experience of 3D TV

I've been out of the technology sector for a while up until earlier this
year. I'd become disinterested but not uninterested.

A pub I was in had a 3D TV. Without the right glasses the screen looked
fuzzy. With the glasses on it was a totally different experience and an
amazing experience. Seeing a football game in 3D is truly amazing. It
must be what it was like for people to experience colour TV for the
first time. It was a much more engaging experience. My eyes dotted
around the screen as I experienced the new sense of depth from what was
once a flat medium.

But it only worked when I was in the right area in the 'sweet spot',
i.e. I had to be in right place directly infront of the TV at the same
level and a set distance away from the screen. Outside the sweet spot
the experience became poor. Worst of all was the experience from where I
was sitting. It returned to being the same fuzzy view as without the
glasses.

Again the implementation of the technology didn't work. People sit
around and watch the match in the pub. They're not going to be standing
in the right position. Only a few people could fit into the sweet spot
if they crammed in. I think they probably don't want to be wearing
glasses to watch a game though the experience was definitely worth it
when it worked.

With the current technology 3D TV's just don't work in the pub
environment. It is an amazing experience but has poor real world
application in the pub. This is true of a lot of technology. Early
adopters are ok with this but this can turn off the public.

I met someone who works in the arms trade last night

I meet the strangest people in pubs. This guy was a Northern lad and he
explained he was down in London to sign a deal on some new Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle technology. UAV's and UCAV's (Unmanned Combat Aerial
Vehicles) are the future of warfare. It'll soon be like playing a
computer game. Since the first Predator aerial drone broke international
convention and launched a Hellfire missile the dawn of a new era in
killing has begun.

UCAV's offer huge advantages over manned vehicles. The primary value is
risk. They can send them into the worst situations and the only fear is
loss of the materials (and the chance the technology could be
reverse-engineered by the enemy if enough survives an attack or a
crash). The reduction in need for the systems to support an organic
being means they can be far lighter. They can stay in the air for days
- much longer than U2 spy plane pilots would do. They can handle higher
acceleration and turning G-force so can jink away from a missile better
than planes like the Eurofighter with it's advanced systems to reduce
the impact of G-force on the pilot.

The man I met was designing systems that would ultimately kill people. I
admit a hypocritical interest in these systems too. I like warfare. But
I don't like what it is in practice. Thankfully I'm not part of the
industry but he was. But he didn't see what he was doing nor what he was
part of. He was just doing his job, a job that he'd done for years and
only did because it was a job. He never thought about his place in the
deaths that UAVs and UCAVs cause.

Collective fetishisation is a word I heard ages ago at a socialist
conference. It's about how people forget what goes into the products
that we buy. Take a can of beans. We never think about the person who
planted them, the one who harvested them, who designed the machiines
that canned them, the people who transport them, design the packaging,
put them on the shelves and all the rest in the chain.

People don't think about their part in the grand scheme of things
either. The bankers never thought their gambles would risk the world
economy as did the people who took mortgages they couldn't afford. This
gent who I met had signed a deal to bring ever more advanced technology
to the battlefield, but he never thought he was making the killing of a
fellow human being easier. Perhaps until he met me.

Blogging, bipolar and self management

It's hard to work with a bipolar condition. By bipolar I mean changes in
mood and productivity (in this example). The example I could use is the
guy who invented the Lightbox. He was the best salesperson in summer but
was on the edge of losing his job in winter.

At the moment I'm in a mixed manic state, i.e. I have energy and ideas
but also have facets of depression.

At the moment I'm blogging a lot on Articulated Naturality. Lots of
ideas. Lots of posts. They're in preparation for a proper blog. I'm
using up my creative energy and higher productivity and I'm sure at some
point my mood will crash. The posts I've written in this period are
preparation for when I crash. As my energy and motivation slips I'll be
able to criticise and rewrite the posts. The creativity won't be as
high in the low period nor will I have as much energy but I can keep a
degree of productivity.

I have needed to have this longer term thinking about my productivity
because I have to self-manage a condition that would get most people
hospitalised and tear their life apart. I know it's dangerous to ride
the wave of hypomania but I'm getting ever more capable. It's necessary
to know that at some point I'll either go too high (my greatest fear
because losing insight means losing the battle to self-manage) or, more
likely, I'll burn out or just crash into a low (either slowly or rapidly).

These variations are hard in a construct of work place productivity
where automoton robotic productivity is expected. Employers want to take
advantage of the mania but they don't want the lowered productivity of
depression or the necessary rest period that comes with it. They often
prefer people who just perform adequately but at a stable level rather
than people who have bursts of productivity where they excel above
automoton levels of performance then periods of intense low where they
can barely be bothered to get out of bed.

G.I.R.L.S. - the future of therapy?

The boys (and girls?) at MIT's affective computing lab have come up with
an interesting concept for therapy.

http://affect.media.mit.edu/projectpages/girls/HOME.html

"
This project is a part of a long-term research plan for understanding
the role that digital technology can play in helping people reflect,
make meaning, and test assumptions they have about the world and the
values they possess. The system, G.I.R.L.S (Girls Involved in Real Life
Sharing), allows users to reflect actively upon the emotions related to
their situations through the construction of pictorial narratives. Users
of this new system were able to gain new knowledge and understanding
about themselves and others through the exploration of authentic and
personal experiences. The system employs a new technology called common
sense reasoning that enables it to infer affective content from the
users' stories and support emotional reflection.
"

This is grounded in psychological theories as the FAQ explains.
"
Each screen of the software is grounded in research related to
constructionism, personal reflection, and active listening. Below we
describe these features.

Organizing Thoughts Around Personal Narratives

The emotional importance of expressive writing has been shown by James
Pennebaker and colleagues (1986) who suggested that written emotional
disclosure has profound effects on both physical and psychological
health. Pennebaker asserts that writing about significant life events
provides an opportunity for reappraisal of thoughts related to an event.
Therefore, a person may gain an increased understanding of her emotional
reactions, which might result in reduced distress (Pennebaker & Beall
1986; Pennebaker 1995). The G.I.R.L.S system offers girls the Memory
Closet, a safe space where they can write about events in their lives.
This writing may be a first step toward organizing thoughts related to
an event. Additionally, the system is set up so that all drafts of a
users story are saved, much like a journal that can be reviewed later.

A Story to Think With - Character Selection and Pictorial Narrative Windows

The next features encountered in the systemthe character selection
window and narrative construction interfacemay help girls to organize
their thoughts further by focusing on the most important people, places,
and things in their story and constructing a pictorial narrative around
them. The pictorial narrative may serve as what constructionists call an
object to think with (Papert 1980) . By externalizing situations in
their lives through expressive narratives and further by creating a
pictorial narrative, girls might better internalize and organize
meaning. The character selection window places girls in the directors
seat and asks them to select the characters who will star in their
story. The system is designed with preset images of characters in order
to emphasize the process of constructing the story rather than
developing images of characters.

Once students have chosen the stars of their stories, they are given the
chance to storyboard their narrative in the narrative construction
interface. They can choose from a small selection of backgrounds, but
they also have the option to use a small paint program to create their
own scenes. The names of the characters chosen in the character
selection window appear in a list box. By selecting a name from the list
and then selecting an emotion face, girls can choose the expressions for
main characters in the story (excluding the character representing
themselves). The goal of this feature is to encourage students to think
about the emotions of the other characters in their stories and use that
reflection to select an expression.

A Story to Think With - Character Selection and Pictorial Narrative Windows

The next features encountered in the system, the character selection
window and narrative construction interface may help girls to organize
their thoughts further by focusing on the most important people, places,
and things in their story and constructing a pictorial narrative around
them. The pictorial narrative may serve as what constructionists call an
object to think with (Papert 1980) . By externalizing situations in
their lives through expressive narratives and further by creating a
pictorial narrative, girls might better internalize and organize
meaning. The character selection window places girls in the directors
seat and asks them to select the characters who will star in their
story. The system is designed with preset images of characters in order
to emphasize the process of constructing the story rather than
developing images of characters.

Once students have chosen the stars of their stories, they are given the
chance to storyboard their narrative in the narrative construction
interface. They can choose from a small selection of backgrounds, but
they also have the option to use a small paint program to create their
own scenes. The names of the characters chosen in the character
selection window appear in a list box. By selecting a name from the list
and then selecting an emotion face, girls can choose the expressions for
main characters in the story (excluding the character representing
themselves). The goal of this feature is to encourage students to think
about the emotions of the other characters in their stories and use that
reflection to select an expression.

ConceptNet: Setting the Stage for Personal Reflection

Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish (1980) , authors of How to Talk So Kids
Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, point out that children often
know how to work through problems but do not since they are so
accustomed to adults doing it for them. The authors suggest an effective
technique of active listening to avoid this tendency: to understand what
the child is feeling, suggest a possibility for how the event may have
made her feel, and let her talk about the situation (Faber & Mazlish
1980). This technique can be repeated until the child is able to work
through her feelings. The G.I.R.L.S. Talk system attempts to use this
so-called active listening technique through an adapted version of a new
technology, ConceptNet, developed at the MIT Media Laboratory (Liu &
Singh 2004) . ConceptNet is a common sense knowledgebase consisting of
spatial, physical, temporal, and social aspects of everyday life. It
consists of a natural-language-processing toolkit supporting affective
textual reasoning tasks over documents (Liu & Singh 2004) . When you
give it examples of text, it attempts to label them from a selection of
eight different emotions that are appropriate to the text. An important
note is that the ability for the system to obtain a more correct
response depends on the language and grammar used.

For each scene, a girl can set up everything except for the character
representing her in the story. To manipulate this character, she must
submit the caption to ConceptNet for analysis. Once she does this, the
system will try to empathetically suggest emotions that relate to this
event.

At this juncture, the student can select from four buttons, which read,
Yeah thats how I felt, No, I didn't feel that way, Maybe a little of
both, or I don't know.

Continuing personal reflection

To further support this first reflection on her emotions, the student is
then taken to an emotional weighting screen. On this screen, the student
can choose from the nine core emotions as well as have the option to
choose her own emotion. The weighting can range from not at all to a
lot, and is ideally based on how much the student felt she experienced
the emotion. This reflection is important because this weighting
determines how the main character (representing the student) will appear
in the main narrative construction screen once the user presses, Done.
For example, if the girl weights happy as a lot, the character will
appear with a big smile. Each emotion and weighting is associated with a
particular expressive appearance.

Sharing Reflection

Here, girls can connect to yahoo messenger and receive feedback on the
prominent emotions represented in her texts as they are sent as well as
feedback on the same in texts that he or she receives. Adding this
dimension helps girls to share how they are feeling, not only to a
computer, but to another girl working on a project.

"

Eating out in the Articulated Naturality Web

I was in my usual Wetherspoons last night and glanced at the food menu.
They have a wide selection of food which I scanned through. In the long
term the menu will disappear entirely to be replaced by a digital menu
accessed with a single key press on a smartphone. In the short to medium
term an AN application may make life a lot easier.

The text on the menu should be able to be recognised by current or very
near-term text recognition systems built in to a phone especially as
mobile phone cameras start getting to even higher resolutions. If I was
still vegetarian I don't need to see all the meat dishes. At the moment
I can identify them fairly quickly by the green V symbol but I could do
it even faster using an AN application by viewing through the video
screen. The software can highlight all the dishes relevant to my dietary
needs. This could apply to religious and allergy dietary requirements as
well as personal choices. These could be highlighted, collected from the
menu and rearranged in a menu floating in front of me in the ANW.

This could be taken a step further. Let's imagine 3 types of consumer:
1)I know what I like and I just want that
2 - I like a little variety but not too much. I usually stick to a
certain type of food but am willing to experiment.
3 - I like to try new and different things

There are two methods to identify these types: attitudes or behaviour.
Attitudes mean the individual could select which type they are or they
could go through a psychological test to determine their type. A
behaviour analysis becomes possible through the increasing amount of
real world information that will be available in electronic form, i.e.
the outernet, so previous choices in restaurants (which can be different
choices to what people make at home) are recorded and fed into a
preference management system (PMS). A PMS could adapt to changes in
behaviour patterns too.

A PMS could interact with the menu either through real world recognition
of menus or digital location-sensitive menus. By knowing a person's
eating habits it can bring up a bespoke menu so someone who doesn't like
Indian food but loves Chinese would only see Chinese food. Someone who's
a type 1 would only see what they usually eat wherever they are whereas
a type 3 gets a list of the special menu.

The Wetherspoons menu is a lot of standardised food but the evolution in
the marketplace is for bespoke products. Even in Wetherspoons a person
can select how they'd like their steak done but instead of having to
tell the staff it's transmitted from their PMS as well as any other
standard customisations like extra bread or no peas.

As assisted-GPS becomes prevalent a phone will know which table a
customer is. This can all be linked to the kitchen system making life
easier for the staff as well as the customer. Orders need never go tot
the wrong table because the staff are guided to the right one using
their AN headset. Clearing tables may be easier too as customers can
press a button on their phone in their location-sensitive menu screen to
let the staff know they've finished their meal.

As people live busier lives taking these little bits of tedium out and
getting them sorted out by what's truly becoming a digital personal
assistant makes daily activities quicker and more convenient.

Pregnancy and early motherhood in the Articulated Naturality Web

Pregnancy is a hard time for a woman. Carrying around the weight of a
baby is hard. Fear of cot death is a problem. There are many other
trials and tribulations that I, as a man, can't understand.

I wonder what the future holds for pregnant mothers.

A big obstacle for any mother is getting around be they expecting or
carrying around a baby. The future navigation systems may become
tailored to different needs. I'm trying to think what specific needs
they may have. For example they may only want to get on public transport
which is tailored to meet their needs, which has space for them to put
their buggy or always has seats available for expecting mothers to sit.
Perhaps systems may be setup to link with traffic control so pregnant
mothers (as well as ambulances, police and fire services) get priority.

I'm not sure how telepresence will work in the ANW, i.e. whether it will
simply be a video call or whether there will be a more advanced
interface. 3D for example can give mothers and fathers full reality view
of their child. Every intensive care unit could have a 3D camera in each
cot.

Biomonitoring is an obvious step too and linked to a mobile platform it
gives parents access to essential data on their child. Physicans may
also want access to this data. I wonder if this could be used to prevent
cot death and other forms child death. Systems get integrated into cots
and patches with biosensors can be attached to pregnant women's stomachs
and babies.

I've always wondered if there was a way that technology could stop a
child crying. I've seen children on the tube and they find it a
distressing experience. It's an unfamiliar environment. It's noisy and
cluttered. Could some sort of helmet or other apparel help to keep
babies calm in environments like this by surrounding their field of view
and aural senses with something familiar or entertaining.

It's hard to think about this because I've never been pregnant. Even
this may change in the future as men may be able to have babies. There's
a $1 million prize for the first man to have a baby (the first man born
as a man). The sponsor believes this will achieve world peace.

There are other concerns, like when is the first moment that a baby
becomes introduced to the ANW. At what point should they become Human
2.0. Many might say as soon as possible but there may be risks. It may
be important to hold off so Human 1.0 senses develop. After all,
electronic systems can fail so the robust Human 1.0 sensory system needs
to develop first before it becomes augmented by the overlay of digital
information overlaid on the real world. Parents want to give their child
every advantage but there may be such a thing as introducing technology
too early in a person's development and this may pose risks that are
unknown until the person matures to adulthood.

The mobile technology revolution and what people really want

The cutting edge of IT forgets the consumer. In fact I should be precise
and say the bleeding edge - beyond the cutting edge.

The consumer's the one who buys the products. They're the ones who use
them. It's always the people that any advance in technology should be
about instead of the wishes and dreams of the those in the computing
industry.

The engineers and the IT technorati have their ideas of what they want.
It's a bit like haute couture and fashion in a sense. While haute
couture might influence fashion it's still the people that buy it. And
most of the time they don't. They buy what they want.

As with the high fashion industry, the bleeding edge of technology is
nothing to do with the public. It's a selfish thing almost. It's about
the desires of the elite. What they.
percieve. What they think will be there future and, often, what they
percieve is their place in the future.

This may be why it needs marketers to create desire rather than
genuinely seek to fulfil desire. Marketers seek to control and influence
the public consciousness rather than listen and understand human nature,
needs and desire. This is why there are so many failures but, of course,
there is still the need to innovate. I think the balance is struck
poorly. Innovation needs to be about purpose as well as dreams.
Understanding people rather than expressing individual desire.

Dotcom didn't focus on on the public nor their wants or needs. It was on
what was perceived as those things. Understanding was irrelevant. It's
sort of like campaigning in mental health but without the degree from
the university of life, or lived experience of mental illness.

The AN revolution may make the same mistakes. Same with AR. The public
want something different, something that's not understandable to people
in the industry. People in the industry forget that their lives are so
different and they have no point of reference to what the people who buy
and use their products care about or how they live their lives. Their
discourse is meaningless banter. Their jargon just a way for them to
feel smarter than others because they use words like "crowdsource" or
any other new bullshit that means they feel superior to the masses.

Too much guess work is involved. I wholly admit this on my part no
matter how much I do to defeat this weakness. Too much, "but of course
this is what people want" or "but I imagine this so it must be true"
goes on in the IT sector, just as in the charity sector.
#
Human 2.0 is something that actually excites me: humankind truly
augmented by technology rather than slaves to poor interface and crappy
design. This is the naturality aspect of AN and ANW. But who, truly
gives a fuck? Sure. The visionaries. The elite. Those with the power but
not those who buy the technology.

Too much of the development disregards the needs and desires of the
people. People just want to get on with their lives and if technology
makes it better then that's great but they don't want more hassle,
stress, complexity or all the other shit that early adopters are willing
to put up with.

Novelty is short lived and often a failure. There are too many to list.
There are genuine things that acutally make people's lives better based
on their needs and desires such as Friends Reunited or Facebook, things
that help basic desires to connect and be connected just as the mobile
phone does. Even these have to overcome a huge inertia for change from
the people but eventually the masses come on board, but only if they're
ideas that make a difference to them rather than ideas that are foisted
upon them.

Simply, many of the people - the masses, the proletariat or simply the
mobile phone technology buying public - don't want to try something new.
If they do it better fucking be worth it.

What I like about Steve Chao's and QPC's reconceptualisation of AR is
that they focus on naturality. To me this means better usability and
truly making technology about what humans want. Digital overlay upon the
real world is irrelevant but for what it can do and what it can do for
the people and their lives rather than what it can do to make money or
to make the visions of the technorati proven.

I believe that Articulated Naturality is about this. It's about
technology that works for the people. It's about natural. Organic. It's
about how computing adapts to people rather than the other way around.
That's truly exciting and that's truly Human 2.0.

Don't even get me started on early attempts at AR. They deserve a suffix
to become ARse. They're directed at making marketing and direct
marketing easier, but I find little value. Fuck. What a waste of time
and technology. Fucking barcodes and shit. No standards even. What the fuck?

People focus is the key. It's that simple. What do humans really want?
Or are the people still just meant to have their wants and desires in
formed by the marketeers.

The future will only be written by what people want from AN and ANW. AR
technology can lick my chocolate salt balls. It's a fucking joke. No
naturality to it. No attempt to understand the consumer or design
technology around them. At least there's one man and one company leading
the field on this. Everything else is ARse.

A plan for self-termination

Well, a sketch really. Just one or four years as the end point.

Not sure I'll be able to get this approved by Dignitas. Doesn't matter
really. I have effective but messy means to get what I want. The end.

My only desire apart from my pseudo-altruistic bullshit is to end this
shit of a life. I'll do it too but now, having found a peaceful option,
I have the time to wait and jump through the necessary hoops. It will be
on my terms. I doubt very much that in a year or even four there'll be
any change in my desire to die. But the option is there.

This gives me hope. This gives me a plan. This gives me what I want
though I have to wait. The money doesn't matter. Nor the time. I can
finally be rid of this shit of a life.

In the meantime I'll work my fucking arse off and stand the sickness
that is humanity and life and living. The light at the end of the tunnel
is a sleep I never wake up from.

I'm happier just thinking about that prospect. Happy days.

Still stuck on the idea of blogging in the Articulated Naturality Web

What the ANW offers is advantages of location information and timeliness
of information as well as increased relevance and usability. It's easy
to perceive the geo-tagged review as a sort of AN blogging but I wonder
what else will develop.

With mobile blogging there are more opportunities for geo-tagged blog
posts, for example after a good or bad experience at a shop. But this
still fits the review-type blog post.

Many bloggers still blog at home and many still find blogs by online
searches unrelated to location.

Perhaps AN blogs might replace the tour guide. Someone walking out into
Tienanmen Square in China may be able to go around without a tour guide
just using their phone to guide them and geo-tagged blog posts to tell
them the history of the area. A single blogger may be the best at this
so people could follow their post around or they may prefer a app-driven
or even a random path around the square. Translation services should be
significantly better and hopefully integrated into ANW browsers just as
Google Translate is integrated into the search engine. This provides the
naturality aspect of AN.

Product review-type blogs are less suitable for geo-tagging but can
still be used based on relevance. RedLaser already provides a basic
interface that allows people to scan barcodes and can potentially link
to suitable blog reviews.

Celebrity blogs make take on a new avenue with venues having posts
written by the celebrities who go there available in the ANW. This
provides an incentive for fans to visit certain places and for venues to
attract celebrities. I'm not sure how this would work in practice
though. I think celebs don't want people to know there every move and
what their favourite haunts are. More likely venues might pay celebs to
blog for them so they can pretend they've had them in there.

Perhaps some bloggers might be interested to geotag their posts at the
location they thought of the idea. I'm not sure if their regular
followers would be interested but perhaps casual passers by who are
stuck waiting for a bus or train might be able to read things posted in
stations to pass the time. This could create a new sort of blogger - the
journalist who catches the same train as you.

It's not really a blog but people can also leave messages for each other
in the ANW blogosphere space.

A little info on multiplatform publising

There is no single platform or medium to reach everyone. Blogging.
Facebook. Twitter. PDFs. Video. Audio. Pod and vodcast. And, of course,
paper. Paper has unique qualities.

What I've seen with conventional blogging is many blogs, like this one,
simple aren't read.

Ultimately any publishing really wants to reach out to their target
audience and engage. Technical blogs in the IT industry have it
relatively easy because the group they're targeting get their content
from electronic media. They still use many different platforms though.

People aiming to hit a wider demographic have the problem of even more
electronic platforms and offline platforms too. A wider demographic will
tend to use the most popular publishing platforms but they may not spend
a lot of time using them. Real world social networks, TV and paper are
among the mediums for publishing cotnet to the wider demographic.

This becomes more expensive but there are tools for publishing to
multiple electronic platforms. This is what I'm looking for at the
moment: software that allows for publishing to all the different major
electronic platforms. It seems like every week there's a new one and a
new idea on how to beat Facebook.

What's even harder is the problem of hardware. It's not just desktop and
laptop PCs anymore. The mobile phone and ebook reader are new ways
people are connected with text and multimedia publishing.

Costs are spiralling. The paper-media model made for relatively easy
revenue generation but the model has changed for new media and many
organisations are struggling to make profitable models based on
free-media. Some companies like QPC Mobile are taking the bull by the
horns and starting their own publishing/promotion engines. This bold
move may aligned with an advertising campaign is perfectly suited to a
complex and revolutionary product aimed at capturing a broad spectrum of
the mobile phone user demographic.

Here are some links to useful information.
http://www.mequoda.com/articles/online-publishing/what-is-multiplatform-publishing/

Off line editors which can publish to multiple platforms
http://www.masternewmedia.org/best-offline-blog-editors-and-web-publishing-tools-mini-guide/

Apps versus websites
http://blogs.semantico.com/discovery-blog/2010/04/publisher-choices-for-mobile-delivery-apps-vs-websites/

A successful multiplatform campaign from HBO
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/6825-anatomy-of-a-cross-platform-campaign-how-hbo-sports-is-plugging-pacquiao-margarito

News of Wordpress, primarily a blogging platform, winning an award for
being a CMS
http://wordpress.org/news/2010/11/cms-award/