I Heard It On NPR
"A child is born with an incomplete skull. She is asphyxiating but otherwise not moving. Well, her eyes are moving. An Elbrus team Heli-Skiing chopper is porting an ECMO unit capable of keeping a failing patient alive. The unfortunate skier they were there to rescue is DOA. As the chopper is swinging around to return to Sukhumi, it receives a 911 call from Elbrus Rescue. The newborn girl is not expected to live. Her days are counted by the hour. Her eyes track images displayed on a visor provided by a Brain Computer Interface device. The EEG tells us an unexpected story.Albena, good morning."
A woman's voice: "Good morning David."
David: "This is a startling event given the persistence of the 'when to pull the plug' issue. It's being said that a healthy EEG is perhaps the better survival prognostic. Why is eye activity so crucial in this particular case?"
Albena: "Well David, according to the Modified Glasgow Coma Scale for Infants and Children, Sharon scores the lowest on motor and verbal response which is basically no response. Yet she scores the highest on eye opening because her eyes open spontaneously. We expected at best response only to verbal stimuli and/or to pain and at worst no response at all. She amazed us."
David: "And the virtual reality?"
Albena: "We've only just acquired this technology and the work with the newborn is done with the understanding that it mustn't interfere with normal development. That being said, it must be appreciated that Sharon is doing exceptionally well in VR."
David: "You know, some might say this case approximates the forbidden experiment in that Sharon stands the chance of being raised essentially by machines."
Albena: "I think the true danger is her not having the experience of proper physical contact. There are babies practically born quadriplegic who survive infancy to face further challenges. They are not the wild child locked in an unresponsive body. They can be quite civilized even though they must perforce live in a care home."
David: "The Brain Computer Interface, or BCI as it is called, is revolutionizing all of our lives. Yet however profound we find the experience of total immersion, the entertainment we are granted pales to the quality of life benefit it gives to individuals locked in their own bodies..."
Corinthians Countee, Cory to her friends, could be said to be the driving factor of recent attainments made by the BCI. Driving along in her automobile, it is the first she's heard of this baby's plight. It was inevitable that they would come upon a case of locked-in at birth. She has worked with cases from birth but not at birth.
Albena: "Paralysis can be confused with coma. Heck, a virtually missing cerebral cortex can be mistaken for a coma or better yet for mental deficiency if we fail to look deeper. Sarah is missing a skull cap. Acalvaria is the correct term. Survival rate is zero for this condition. The ultimate Plug-in is the Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation machine. And the record I think is 46 days. Our main goal is to wean her from this level of care intensive that does not burden us with decisions if or when to pull the plug because of the constantly ticking clock."
David: "That was Ms. Albena Petrova Arnaudova lately of the World Health Organization. She is advised by Rita Trapsh Chief Obstetrician of Abkhazia."
"Well" thinks Cory to herself, "Will she learn how to move properly or will she fly around and have tentacles with many fingers and be a segmented maypole rotating in odd directions?"
Following the advice of a associate she stands in a market place absorbed in the pages of a tabloid. The story has gained intrigue. The mother has gone missing? What was she doing pregnant and in the mountains anyway? Escaping? She is a member of the rare haplogroup X group of mitochondrial DNA associated with the Caucasus? Clandestine genetic engineering. The Russians. Ties to Nazi Germany. Hooo, no aliens? Hey! Anca Puiu. From IBM. Cory works for IBM. Anca popped up in her heads because Anca has that same DNA.
Southbury, Connecticut: St. Sergius Chapel is a reminder of Russia. A German community tried to support the Nazi here to the extent of attempting to build its own army. Coincidence? I don't think so. Ha Ha. She thinks to herself. This is an IBM town and where she lives and works. It is also close to Metaverse NY a bunch who could be considered Sci-Fi. Second Life. Why she's here.
Surgeon Dr Sergio "Frankenstein" Canavero was seen lurking at the Houston Methodist Hospital where the rich go to die. According to him we are only a micro-clean cut and special putty away from the first human head transplant. The BCI has purportedly improved the quality of life for the terminally ill and brightened the overall outlook of things. Even if they cannot have another body they are kindled by the prospect of their head living on their mind inside a Second Life Virtual Reality. George HW Bush an ongoing resident famous for his enthusiastic wearing of the head covering gear, was up an about in Washington with his son and President Obama. So who then was Sergio there to see.
Inquiring minds what to know Cory added. Wow. Did I do that? How do you spell hubris. But don't you have to be a deserving hub? (In order to be justifiably inflicted with hubris. ) I've gotten awards you know. This is her private joke for the times when folks attitudes suggested she bordered on mutiny for not wanting to abandon ship or alter course. Times when she looked around herself a Captain Ahab standing alone on the deck. All ye of little faith. She shook herself barely registered or noticeable as if to rid herself of macabre. She took exit 20 for I684 toward NY22 dimly shadowed by a rising damp of fear.
Hub or Hubris?
Cory's virtual eyes scan the virtual surrounds trying to observe sudden shifts of continuity jumps or jerks. Trying to catch the moment of a shift. Searching in the immediate actual act of seeing; to see any skips in what she is seeing. Not really a blind spot but rather a fleeting spot. Watching the eyes of the other avatars, their movements are realistic and intelligent and must mirror her own. There is some rezzing and some lag but not much.Moving your eyes to navigate immersive space in a kind of mouseview perspective where fast eye movement doesn't whir so much as jumps. That's what it's like. Cory has gotten to be an old hand at it; yet here she is, her metaphorical head cranked back New York New York tourist style. She reaches out a hand that in the moment can only be her avatar hand, and places it on her very own accommodating hovering black spot. The black spot resolves into a keyboard on which she begins to tap. In a chat box she writes it down. It's not lost on these mostly New Yorkers chuckles all around.
Chuckling: The real body responds first but this is distracting and it injects noise into the system. So you resume su/re -pressing (quieting) the body and return to the immediacy of the virtual. You give a more controlled less visceral response, handing the ball as it were back to your avatar. Rocking, shaking, knee slapping, and rolling holding your sides are favorites. She hears through her ear phones the ambient sounds. The NIRS/EEG cap fits like a swimming cap. The optical probes close to the ears limit how much of the ear the phones can cover (circumaural).
Cory catches the eye of Josephine Junot getting a little thrill just from the doing: A rush from interpersonal dynamics in so odd a landscape. The NonProfit Commons is not odd in and of itself don't get me wrong thinks Cory. Introducing Krestianstvo - the modern p2p virtual world based on Croquet is towering above. It's a photo finish which one of us is the MC of this glorious event. Josephine's been behind me, I mean us, ever since she knew about our particular BCI project. Never deserving of ear boxing although never quite a deck hand actually. LAAYYYDEEE is my Avatar name. I've been sort of closeted and am in need of catching up socially.
A motley crue? Nah, just the usual. Giant Kargath Bladefist is hard to miss. Tusks like sharp stalagmites protruding out of a dark blood red face matched by giant stalagmites/stalactites sets fitted to the shoulders of armor made out of the same cavern with ground hugging blades instead of hands. Talk about a speech impediment. (The blades not the sentence). Tuna Oddfellow: a black top hat and coat voodoo look, white skeletal while fleshed all at once seeming. Pale Infinity: Yíkes! White skin and clothes Waif. Rex Obviate: a black Svengali.
Walking the cobblestone of NYU Poly after parking at the Marriott: Through the glass doors of 2 MetroTech; gentlemen open the door for the ladys; that's right do-si-do; Are we perchance to join the same rendezvous? Cory has browsed the faces of Metaverse NY and asked and answered on their webpage. Greg Lions has the temperamental John Savage look down. First impressions. Behind the minimal door off the lobby and the coolly harmless facade of it's sentinel metal detectors, lies a waiting world. Along marble corridors and golden elevators through cozy space I met this meetup.
Josephine is typing. "let's aL clOs ^" "grup H". Instead of snappy comebacks like "iz dat wise?" "U suR dat safe?", they all just give it a go. The program won't let you pass through other people or scenery. However, it's up to you to notice. Like toddlers or some reverse blindness (you can see but can't feel) and where only the watched pot will boil. No use running a hand along some texture. Cupping a breast on the other hand may get you a feel of things thus is the nature of the brain. A slap obeys virtual physics and an abrupt 90° change of viewpoint is probably in order (maybe 360, maybe even 360 over and over). Maybe some stars and a little unresponsiveness. You might even go horizontal. Similarly a knee in the groin however unintentional. No pushing and shoving.
Marveling at the graphics up close and getting caught mesmerizing with one's own hands, if we were nothing but eyes in contact in the dark it would hold us in the moment. Persephone Phoenix is discovering her inner dancer. So intent is she she only just discovers she is the center of attention. There are things to be said but too much bother to say them, to disturb the flow of the moment. Everyone knows Persephone dances in real life. Well, almost everyone. Cory remembers the plump vibrant redhead in the elevator.
So watching in her little girl in the attic knowing way that you are compelled to acknowledge. This is AngryBeth Shortbread. A face molded on her own Annabeth Robinson face. Cory's avatar is modeled on Lilian Roth with whom she has been told she bears a more than passing resemblance. (I'll Cry Tomorrow, and no that was Susan Hayward playing her who doesn't actually look anything like her. Try the kid from Grounded For Life but even cuter.) She wished her legs looked like hers. She makes a face at Anastasios Aurotharius. He winks. He is fabio/caveman/greek god. How would he smell? She can almost smell. What is She doing? Sideways looking at her is what everyone else is doing. Ⓐrιєllє.ⒸσуÐαѕнιαɴ.Ⓖнσşт: That's Ebonylynette to you, face an inverted teardrop with I dream of jeannie on her bottle eyes. We give her her space.
In Cory's mind, this little african american lady superimposed on her avatar mimics her avatar for a moment her grin a little cheshire. Cory returns the imagined smile feeling that something has indeed passed between them. The girl who seemed to be walking faster than everyone else just to keep up. I half expected her to produce a news microphone at me, thinks Cory. “You Already Know” she would prefix her commentary. She is “Wylin” and “Fuck Outta Here!” is her term of skepticism. Tom Hines "so the dance begins, wherein both parties seem to do a sped-up version of the robot, first extending an open hand, then switching to open arms, with the other party doing the opposite" (urbandictionary.com).
Petey Carver, the slightly cyborg gentlemen perhaps a count or duke in his Star Trek simple uniform, does some robot moves and I laugh. We essay a hug this time. I pat his chest. See, not so hard to do. I notice his eyes returning to a direction I turn to follow. Glamouramama Boa has become still shifting herself oh so slightly. Her eyes read the audience feedback for her every nuance. Posing in her mind's eye. The interface they are using only really understands motion. The motion of putting something somewhere. You are here. Is that promise on her face?
There is something of a previous era about Katy Ells. Old lady perfume was not old when the old ladies were young. You anticipate it's bouquet when enters Katy even if you get something youthful instead. Katy was take charge learning everything and was the last in the room before Cory to gear up. Peggy Sheehy is waiting to be sold on this whole enterprise in her "just the facts, ma'am" smiling patience way. Easier on the eyes than Sgt. Joe Friday. Rhonda Lowry is the tough guy no a good natured gal first in line to try something new, to be entertained, to make magic, to kiss the Blarney Stone.
Maggie MArat mirrors Peggy's compassioned face complete with Klingon friendly forehead. Grace McDunnough is a beautiful endearing mask for Rhonda to wear although the toughness is there. It comes through particularly now with this interface. Josephine's upheld hands gets everyones attention, eventually, after some nudging, no that won't work, they have to see you. When her hands drop it's to the rhythm of typing. "Recess iz Ovr & talkies R hEr, well, sort of." "silNt film intertitles" this from Zha Ewry. She is a doll that knows she is, a flawed doll whose symmetry is less than perfect. Like Grace she is Central Casting brown. Unlike Grace/Rhonda... David Levine plays on his resemblance to Jon Lovitz of "The Critic" fame. This is an old joke. Like Cory with whom he has more than a passing familiarity, he works for IBM. Lilian (Cory's easier name) smiles.
Original having a secret knowing eyes: The little boy Stanley Kubrick getting his peering in face again in the home movie closeup. This is Joyce Bettencourt. Not artful as Bette Davis eyes. Rhiannon Chatnoir, her avatar, has open eyes as well but not hooded somehow by their dark iris. Here, perhaps, she is more removing a mask in a sense than donning one. She is Josephine's partner in crime co-organizers of NY Metaverse. No matter how great the experience, the cost of the BCI hardware is problematic. For instance, alone, the Stratix field programmable gate array is 2,500. At $170 per 2.05x1.19 inch, PowerAct™ transducers line the inside of the cap. Enough to curb the enthusiasm of one geared up for inclusion rather than exclusion.
Rhiannon opens her hands expressively "wot cn I say? DIS iz great!" hovers over her head. Thumbs up from everyone's chat. Lynette Radio came to see what all the fuss is about. How does moving from playing with dolls with other people, to becoming the dolls, alter the playing as social networking aspect of the thing and the emphasis on creativity? "sumtimz U wnt DIS. we haven't needed it. duz it threaten wot we've already made?" Lynette is more at home using her own voice in SL amongst the podcasting clans; however, she can chat with the best of them. Ebonylynette is here as a guest of her's. "1 wrd. mrkt appeal" Ebony contrives somehow to hold her chatbox like a sign and shakes it. Lynette can't help smiling.
Her features seem to crowd her face. Use of space is an important feature of the carven flow of its heights and depths. The perfection established here, hinted in her face, is questioned by its cropping, the foreshortening of it's expected boundary. This equals an increase in the "interesting" factor. Certain angles and shades of her face become a different face, one of more beautiful symmetry. Gloria Swanson and Raoul Walsh cigarettes connecting. This is the face of Lynette Young. Her Radio avatar is designed on this face. She is disappointed that using your own voice creates too much muscle noise for the BCI as well as breaks the thought to movement concentration. Lip and tongue movement are major areas of the cortex followed by the jaw and pharynx. Only in 2007 has work began on the larynx-specific area: Phonation and articulation, vocalization of a vowel, glottal stops, i.e, the forced closure of the glottis in the absence of vocalizing. This area is the principal vocal center. And the area for vocalization (i.e., the generation of a ‘‘vowel cry’’) overlap the areas for articulation (Steven Brown, Elton Ngan and Mario Liotti). GetMoving™ 2.0 will hopefully be more to Lynette's taste.
Richard Dreyfus, the Jaw's guy but older, this is the photo Dave Pentecost likes to use of himself, a signature look if ever there was one. The scruffiness that sometimes comes with the look is in this specific case an illusion. The cap thing is related to the Spielberg thing you get on first impression from some guys. Usu Ventura the avatar has the scruffiness as well as a complexion that could be Mayan or sunburnt. At some point in time as the good-ship BCI announced it's need to create a thousand virtual EEG montages, but then Texas Instruments came on-board, the prospects of immersion in an avatar begin to brighten. This is when the project crossed the radar of the likes of Dave. If he has a beef it would be with the availability of the device to the locked-in (their bodies) who were the original target of bci research.
The research started with the controversial use of the paralyzed as subjects trying to move rather than using normal moving persons imagining their movement, i.e, the researchers themselves as subjects. They are participants, stakeholders as they say at COGAIN (Communication by Gaze Interaction), and in short, are irreplaceable. As Usu sidles into the center of the crowd, he seems to carry the weight of all this on his shoulders. "Sidling isn't EZ hEr bt I learned a few things n Guatemala", he shows a noise maker in his hand "barely audible bt irritating az hell; or enticing". We could hear the murmured laughter outside our earphones.
The NonProfit Commons is open today to the public in God Mode's camera view-only. Though we are the only avatars in sight, there is a not so madding crowd gathered, depending on server capacity an capability and such things. Shava Nerad has followed BCI research from the beginning. She got excited by NeuroSky and Emotiv and The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface. Multi-array implantable nano electrodes, when they arrived she saw them coming. She was just not in a position to do anything. Ideas are the stuff her and Mathew "Fish the Magish" Fishman are made of. There is no cortical area that receives only vestibular input. Instead, they also receive somatosensory and/or visual motion input (University of Utah School of Medicine). The trick is to trick the vestibular cortex into stimulating. Perhaps GetMoving™ 2.0 or maybe 3.0 depending on the Beta testing.
Shava Suntzu comes on by the subtle dynamics of "crowdsourcing". Her studious typing in her geisha-like way pop-up "Come-on you guys. You really don't expect me to go all soapy do you? The NSA could do wonderful things with this, reverse engineer the output to get to and read the source. What would be worse, if they could get it right or got it wrong thinking they were getting it right, seeing what they wanted to see?A great thing is spoiled already. But you're right, this iz! great :)" A solemn presence, Tuna Oddfellow makes his presence known, he types "In the flesh, this is just a prelude for what will be brought to you by nanotechnology, but it's here now. Maybe not a new age but certainly a beginning."
Odd Ball and the Cathedral Effect have left the building due to the new terms of service. The building being Second Life and the question is are they to have a change of heart in light of these new developments. Shava and Tuna are back in this kind of Switzerland with the big hitters like IBM, Texas Instruments and Shimadzu. Wall Street is watching where only the big gamblers thought the boys and girls would pull it out. Corinthians and company took the inventor's approach rather than the scientist's, and forgo publishing. But in a very un-inventor-like way they held off on patent application as well until they had a working product. Now everyone is struggling to catch up. But just what do we have here has yet to be decided. It's not so much what does it do but rather what do we do with it. The jury is still out.
Benjamin H. Linson is just glad the cat is finally out of the proverbial bag. When corporate upped the ante on the work being done at BESA (Brain Electrical Source Analysis) an environment for innovation was created, much like unmanned work on the asteroid belt would. That they were being closed about it was off-putting. The variously paralyzed persons and their entourage going through were forthcoming enough. However, to most of them it was a black box. The engineer types all had a 'do it' rather than 'talk about it' attitude. We are doing this thing. We will talk about it after it's done. Benjamin is a nonetheless critical admirer of it's creative act, he has played catch-up and now he is here, A beta tester.
Anastasios stands next to Lily. He has questions for her. Whoops? Did I shove into her? He tries to catch her but closes his hands too fast and two fist her instead. He recuperates quickly enough to catch her. The expression on Josephine's face is comical as she realizes her world is tilting, she wasn't paying attention. Rhiannon is but doesn't account for her body being shoved braced against the forward momentum of Lily and Anastasios, and also she makes a last minute grab for Josephine. The resulting Push-O-Rama lasts until all the dominoes are righted. It would have been over quicker if not for the kicking-in of the Pillow Fight Effect. Anastasios "My bad, but my that was informative. It should be part of the orientation."
Kargath Bladefist had already rezzed into a practically bare form regaining his hands. "When it comes to bumping cars I'm King of the Hill" he declares bumping his chest, the effect is spoiled as his eyes dart around and down at himself to see that he has maintained his balance. Anastasios struts close by formidable in his own right albeit a head and shoulder further down. There are other contenders. Carlito Teardrop famous for his backlit imposing portrait. VERITAS Heliosense "My name means TRUTH". Eric LɛƑavre looks like he might weigh-in "If I might remove my spectacles" accented by a hair flip. Bruno Echegaray is tall almost as Kargath and well built but lanky.
Bruno Cerboni in the flesh is an imposing fleshed-out Danny Aiello or Mike Starr. Eric J. Hébert is in Older Charlie Daniels territory. Chuck Tyler (Carlito Teardrop) is more of a James Earl Jones. Belal "give him a scimitar" Awad (Kargath Bladefist) is a not so tall stocky the warden of the Cairo prison that accompanied the gang in The Mummy remake. Greg Lions ( VERITAS Heliosense) on second thought thinks Cory, after you get past the John Savage thing his Metaverse Meet-up photo is doing, is more a Larry Hagman with a brow that competes with Lou Ferrigno.
With much ado, Kargath Bladefist reveals that he is really Millhouse ManastÖrm with much applause all around (conveniently provided by the platform's audio, impressively distinctive according to the palms being applied). ManastÖrm is an old gnome mage who displaces much less virtual air. For a moment there he truly sucked, sucked you in. "I thought I'd get that off my chest" like the little guy just pulled off a tight shirt. Josephine: "Do we need a nap time children?" Bruno: "It's amazing the persistence of the whole thing, it just keeps going on!" Anastasios: "Like the wonder is that it doesn't break." They share a look engineer to engineer. Bruno laughs but of course there is no sound. "We should be able to do laughs" he pauses "Lily, I mean sounds." "Lily shakes her head agreeing, she looks at Malwina, Malwina Dollinger, the blond nods. She has more the look of the Italian blond, she is probably meant to be Polish.
Malwina A. Buldys adds blue eyes to the affect. She prefers voice over text. She has done her share of translating into Polish various SL text particularly video tutorials. She got the drift of this particular BCI research kind of late; That it was different than what everyone else was doing. But the research was like black-ops. Whenever someone went in to do some writing they usually got shanghaied by the thing itself. That is, if they were qualified enough to write. Now they are writing, archiving to be more exact, and she has been reading. But this, this is experiencing.
"This is Synchronous Face to Face Interaction without Corporeal Copresence with Corporeal Telcopresence only." She texts. "Of Mice and Men" Bruno, "The DAHMS Project - Industria 2015, I mean, it's not completely trashed." Lily: "About that..." Bruno waves a hand "We'll work it out. This is so different, we weren't supposed to get to this so soon." Josephine: "CHILDREN: We have to do something about this need to push to the center in order to speak. " She starts walking and the crowd parts for her. She gestures expansively. "How we would normally do things here puts everyone so far away from each other." Nicki Clary "Sorry to interrupt Josephine but it's amazing to see your mannerisms on this avatar." Josephine looks at her studying her. The bookish eye-glassed pretty face that manages not to look like the glasses are what make it look smart. Dagger Campese on the other hand is designed a little differently, "Dagger is like totally trying to think of something to put here and stuff, but thinking is not one of her strong points." (my.secondlife.com).
Jenna Hoiles Sweeney is an aryan model Star Trek Cardassian complete with neck. Her somewhat infamous former husband and business partner purportedly kept her at the office to keep guys from hitting on her. She is much quoted and her blogging much attended amongst the community for how "Modern corporate training is now being delivered through virtual online worlds." Mark Gladding says "I’ll certainly have to look up Jenna, when Tumbywood Software becomes a large corporation and I need some interesting ways of delivering training to my
Dagger "Too much room to roam." Nicki "But I guess we should take our seats. Maybe we could all have opera glasses, tada, like these." She makes a wrinkled nose face at Tuna. "how did that look, I was going for the one Myrna makes at Powell shows that she's not jealous?" Rhiannon gives her a thumbs up. Bruno strides to one of the three pedestal-like stools and with a flourish notable for it's lack of flourish promptly sits on it. Several seconds pass as he looks out as if tasting a fine wine sans mouth moves. He holds up a hand as if to say just a little longer. "No, no difference between standing and sitting. No taking a load off I would guess because there is no load? What about reclining? This is not Roman."
Dr Morton Swimmer resembles no one less than Bill Gates himself. Security protagonist, research monkey and architect of really cool (but secret) things. He flies in from Germany. Born in New York City and raised there and in Hamburg. Meagan Grund Hudak lives in Naperville, Illinois, right outside Chicago. "In only three years as an undergraduate, Meagan Grund has left her mark on campus." Says Steve Skok of Ohio State. This is said of her fundraising potential. Start with Genie Francis of Luke and Laura fame. The slight over bite. Make her a little darker around the eyes and hair. Some of the hungry look of Laurie Sargent Streets of Fire Face-to-Face you know with the 84 song "10-9-8".
Sifu Moraga is Jeet Kune Do centered famed by its founder Bruce Lee to whom he bears more than a passing resemblance. Haileigh Flanagan is Lieutenant Uhura meet Sophia Loren sans boths' attitude, definitely a sweater girl. With the slight over bite and an attitude of her own. Sifu was always the seldom seen kid. Haileigh hasn't been seen for a while. They seem to converge on Bruno from different directions as if planned. Sifu " Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!". Bruno "But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected. We are avoiding feeling our physical bodies like they're a bad conversation piece." Haileigh "I've heard that after you've done this it's easier to control the jitters in real life. You're actually sending the motion to an avatar, one that's not actually giving you actual audiovisual feed." Bruno "Nice segue." Haileigh "No! they're related" Bruno looks thoughtful. Sifu "Perhaps we should have a try at triadic dialogue." Haileigh "Can't get a word in edgeways?"
Josephine "Class! Do we take seats or do we waste this perfectly good amphitheater. It's always been good enough before." Lily "The thing is, sitting down roots you. You have to leave your perch if you want to do something. Call it a buffer. Remembering how you need to move to accomplish a goal gives you a second chance at committing to that goal. Spontaneity suffers. The Moral? Always Remember how you are posed." Glamouramama Boa claps a slow applause. "Some respect for me and my Fellow Poseurs. We put in some hours getting you lot up to par, she said in her best british colloquial. You gotta love that NPC scene with Chayenn, Tiltank Tibedeau, Jacmacaire humby and Draxtor Despres, where Draxtor sits there naturally as can be while on either side the others are posed GI Joes and Barbies with completely wrong centers of gravity. That's what I'm talking about! Thank You for The Bytegang project." The applause is taken up.
Josephine "Here's what we're going to do. Everyone make room we got incoming. No shove-fest this time. " After much ado... "Ok here they come." She fiddles with a suspicious-looking device and the "toadstools" begin to multiply until there is enough for everyone. She makes a go ahead gesture and we proceed to be seated. "Little guys up front" Millhouse ManastÖrm is striding up as per her device a stem of a stool is shortening so that when he lands his feet touch the ground."Shucks I was going to levitate." "We don't want your legs swelling" is her comeback. Lily "Quiet in the corridors, I've always wanted to say that." She sits on one of the three central seats. "Right" says Josephine giving her a once over. "Clowns to the left of me jokers to the right." from Rhiannon sitting on the other end. "That's my line." Josephine eyeing the middle. "This is not at all the way these things usually go, and I've done enough of them. I can't wait to read the transcript."
"Now boys and girls, are we all seated. Fine". Brushing her hair back, She touches and ear bud that might not have been there before. "Last minute surprise" she motions to empty space. Three figures begin rezzing. The white blond haired asian tactfully, or is it tactically, dressed; Anne Parillaud the original dark La Femme Nikita with glasses and pearls; And, a purple human cat. Candy Azure, MincedMedia Clip and Glitteractica Cookie. "Girls" Rhiannon. They walk like runway models. "You've been practicing" Lily. "Tirelessly" Candy. "Where on earth did you get the gear?" Lily. "We got our ways and means." Glitteractica. "She's TechSoup." MincedMedia. "Oh. I know who you are Candy." Lily "Are you all together, I mean in RL?" "No I'm in Germany." Candy. "San Fran" Glitteractica. "Tucson" MincedMedia. "We've been busy."Glitteractica.
The purple cat points at Haileigh, a point that becomes a wave. "I don't believe it". Haileigh makes the magicians assistant's motion that says ta-dah I appear before you're eyes. "You should of been with us." Glitteractica. "But That would break the coven. Three or thirteen." Haileigh. Glitteractica just shakes her head. MincedMedia "Are you back in the game?" Haileigh just shrugs, but waves affectionately. Josephine "So you've been practicing..." "In Krestianstvo she means" laughs Candy to the other two's blank looks, it is a delightful laugh. She brought it with her. "I'm going right into a theme song here." Josephine. "I do have some proprietary feelings for these grounds and I do want to be present at this momentous occasion." Candy. "For our presentation." Josephine. "And for your presentations." Candy. "Girls" Rhiannon.
Candy Azure is an avatar of an avatar. Yeah, that Anshe Chung, "Rockefeller of Second Life". Anshe looks at home on BusinessWeek. Ailin Graef's is the burgundy wine glass of a face, her features writ small and precise (not loud like the Kool-Aid Man's). She is Red China taking tentative steps into capitalism. Lily remembers Susan Tenby testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium. Not to leave out The Daily Show's "Avatar Heroes" and the "Damn you, Tenby!" she got from Stewart. The face behind the cat is the child of Emmy Lou Harris and Tracy Gold. Her ears poking out from behind her hair just want to be pointed. Kim M. Bayne will be played by Kim Hunter rather than Anne Parillaud.
A highlight for Lily/Cory (Ph.D. in Statistical Science) is when she gets to try and explain how they used Quartus II (a software tool), Monte Carlo algorithms, and flip/flop metastability in the Field Programmable Gate Array to monitor current steering in the brain. Susan/Glitteractica fields questions concerning openeeg and techsoup, and Microsoft New Association for Accessibility Professionals, the stakeholders of Communication by Gaze Interaction (COGAIN) who have only up to now been considered potentially as International Association of Accessibility Professionals candidates, and techsoup. Or at least she takes notes to take home to Caravan Studios and it's parents Techsoup.
Josephine Dorado has that polynesian/amazon rain forest look although her last name suggest the southwest desert (a mystery of pre and post indigenous americas). Josephine Junot looks like her name could be Maya. Christopher Columbus! Could be african american. Could be modeled on Josephine Baker except to be more cheeky. Her eyes are more inquiring than stating. Dorado's eyes are stating something most likely about being a woman of color free to speak her mind and take her fate in her own hands. Ass.Prof. Reinhold Scherer is Jean Reno from The Professional (first impressions). Cory "subducted" for the BCI, him and his Kinect motion tracking sensor in game-based paradigms for EEG motor mapping. Suslov Nikolay of Krestianstvo SDK connects Kinect and Smalltalk. A long haired Christopher Lambert? forehead and nose all wrong. Ron Howard? wrong tangents. Tilda Swinton? Good template. Impressions of David Carradine.
Sean Kean: John de Lancie, "Q" of the Q Continuum, with jutting chin; crop his head Paul Shaffer size, of Late Night D Letterman. A Kinect scan provides the avatar. Rachel Boggia is a Gallo-Spanish Goth mix of Bebe Neuwirth and Karen Allen. She got the Kinect scan. Rachel hails from Lewiston, Maine. Sean is a Long Island native. Rachel is a Master of Dance Art with a sideline of Neurobiology. Sean is the organizer of Volumetric Society of NYC - 3D, Telematics, Kinect, Emotiv +. Him walking in with Emotiv + would be like Dr. Grant in Jurassic Park first beholding the dinosaurs as he holds the prized fossil in hand. (from a certain point of view) JP to came with a price. And, it was done off the radar.
The "next step" BCI was stuck in the debate whether or not flip/flop metastability in asynchronous signal processing systems had any relation to the signal themselves. "Yes, a signal has been seen, but no, it’s not coming from some alien civilization. It’s almost certainly something much closer, like a satellite interfering with the observation"(Phil Plait). Strange Attractors: Deterministic Systems with a Touch of Fantasy. Systems with an irregular, non periodic, “chaotic” time evolution...Think for example of the smoke rising in still air from a cigarette, Jupiter's storms. (David Ruelle). This is not about brain ontology, but rather about electroencephalogram epistemology. YouTube featured individuals of varying degrees of paralysis wearing their sci-fi helmets move their onscreen avatars. The hits topped the charts. It's like watching stop-motion or go-motion. The little train that could. But would it? And now this chaos theory bull-shit. Or was it bullshit? Emotiv + worked. A bird in hand...
Heidi Boisvert: In your face poster child. Boyish, Aussie-like. Suppressed energy of a young Mickey Rooney but with an air of gloom and lidded desperation. Her facebook photo is blurred by motion. Have you seen the quite young Ruth Gordon? A close body double. Her avatar is Anna the blonde from ICED: I Can End Deportation, the Machinima of Game. Busty and Polish, beauty and a hint of beast in her visage in her rough and tumble one piece blue dress. But what is Suslov to wear? Perhaps something dsymorphic. Will he come as an Infinite Wall for seeing "all of a topic" and use live video to look others in the eyes? Not the donkey head like the body of a star wars slow walker with elongated octagon slab wings on top. The folded Windows Logo Curved Space Explorer? His favorite chair he names Man'j "roll your interaction environment around" creating music in movement using realtime sound synthesis aided by software designed for the ventilation industry?
He goes with the Kinect scan we see as he "steps out of the transporter" along with Anna Sean and Rachel, more of Josephine's special guest. Though Altera uses Texas Instrument's production facilities, Maine, Scotland and Malaysia are where GetMoving™ is assembled. Mostly Melaka, Malaysia. Midé Technology Corporation maker of the special electrodes is the limiting factor. They number 11-50 employees Medford, MA. Suslov gestures ladies first. Rachel steps in to embrace Josephine. There is more stiffness on Josephines part. She quickly types "People know I'm better at this." Rachel"It takes practice." Josephine eyes Anna to cross the impersonal space which she does. After a long moment Josephine looks around as if to say "Do we need to peel her off?" Anna stepping back sniffs convincingly. She types "I just got a phantom limbs plus torso squeeze" Suslov "You've done wonders with the place." Josephine"We have."Suslov "How do you say, Through The Looking-Glass."
Arduino on the playground is an open-source electronics prototyping platform for anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments (arduino.cc). BeagleBone y and Raspeberry Pi, the size of credit cards, are far more powerful, as they are small computers, to develop considerably more complex things. Nanode, an extension of Arduino, is less expensive. Waspmote is less to play around with, a commercial product specifically designed for the development of the Internet of Things, is compatible with any of the projects we can do in Arduino (Ivan Lozano). Suslov is decidedly a do it yourselfer but willing to take things on faith. Libelium Waspmote is marketed by a Spanish start-up recognized as an innovative company by different Spanish government institutions. "This is not like the other stuff. There is no effort. Initially there is lag, yes, but it resolves. Your brain is being trained each go at it. The miracles happen every time someone denied the simple expedient of moving about finds joy and hope and words at their finger tips to express it."
This earns a round of applause and you don't have to say "Mr. Music please" to hear it. Lily "The guys at eightbar have really come through." She nods at IBM alumni Sifu Moraga who acknowledges. The meetup gang isn't using Waspmote or Arduino because they are setup as a Thin Client where Microsoft's Cloud Computing is carrying the load. The Non Profit Commons sim is brought to you by an Xbox live backend of Unity3D. No Kinect sensor is actually being harmed. The BCI generates SkeletonStream data not limited by the sensor.
Josephine is plugged into an i3D.net Control Panel, a service out of Rotterdam the Netherlands a certified Microsoft Xbox Developer. She does an off-handed ta-da and another sim appears beside her. He sings ♫and I won't even mention me cuz uh I am not really here♫in an actual voice like Jimi Hendrix. It continues
♫Halleluia!
They call me Casper!
Not the friendly ghost
But the holy ghost! Dig!
And I'm Here
To make ya shout
Glory be to the one
Who knows what the funk's about
Like the ridin' rhythm
Only if you can stand
The elastic music
Of my Rubber Band
I'm gonna hit ya with the one (ughh)
And Glory Be, the Funk's on me, cuz DIG!
This is Casper here, and I'm callin' short distance, baby
I'm gonna hit ya with the one on the fun ♫
This is Marcus McCullough. This is Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson a tad aquiline blue eyed with glasses lip syncing Bootsy Collins. He texts "Hi ya'll" . Josephine holds a mallet before a gong but in an eye blink these items are gone. "I to come prepared" she texts.
This is Doug Maxwell of US Army on Military Applications of Virtual Worlds. Actually, Cory knows this one. Another Clan Red Skelton (He prepared the way for so many). This is Naval Undersea Warfare research in Newport RI and The NUWC Metaverse Exploration initiative, beyond scripted rule-based dialog and action. This is Team Orlando and The STOKES Advanced Research Computing Center. And where there's Doug there must be Chris Collins, a Colin Friels (Darkman) type Aussie former Technical Assistant to the CEO at Linden Lab (the makers of Second Life).
Marcus "You had to be there"
Josephine "So they say"
Marcus "So they say"
Josephine "So how are our vitals?"
What Happened Next
Down the hall in an opened space of the hallway leading in and out, is the pantry/break room. It contains a wall of windows looking into The Visualization Room inside of which is a massive multiple monitor array which operates as one monitor. The gang has moved in, the cupboard was not bare courtesy of Bully's Catering. Despite the conversation piece up and running as wallpaper, the topic has come around to Virtual Sex Sans Masturbation. It is a well known fact that some boys and some girls have very mobile genitalia. They are around where the feet are(sensory wise). There's not really much motor representation, because if you think about it, there's not much musculature there under voluntary control. (@atstdriver →Best Answer/answers.yahoo.com) This is terra cognita that has yet to become firma as far as Cory knows. This is like sex in space.
"Candid behind-the-keyboard details are meaningless" was the theme of an 09 Second Life sex forum. Jig Chippewa (Fine Young Cannibal) asked the question: "We all wank. I do it (and I do it very elegantly). You do it. Lindens do it. BUT, when you do it in sl do you do it in a "one-handed" way (so to speak) or in a sharing and consensual way with your partner or one-nighter?" Milla Alexandre described it as "pixel clinical and ultimately completely empty and boring." "To me," Arcady Yue (Sex Kitten) "its silly fun. I giggle away as I watch my avatar getting her pixel-perfect jollies on my screen, and then try to think of the most erotic yet silly things to type into SL for my cybering. For me, its just a fun and casual way to socialize in SL. My little neko avatar is the bonobo of SL - you extend a handshake to greet someone, my little kitty spreads her legs. So... no relationships to it. More just kicks. Sure, some of my partners are very turned on by it, but hey; that's their thing, and I have no problems with that. More power to them. "
Rhonda Pinion: "Yes, for some it's just watching pixels clash for the fun of it, for some just a pixelized porno, and for some it may be more. And it may be all three at one time for everybody. It depends a lot on our mood - what's on our minds at the time." CarlCorey Colman (Fnord): "It's been a long time since I've done sex in SL. Even at that time though, I was never good at typing one-handed NOR was I good at pleasuring myself one handed. So sex in SL was 100% roleplay albeit roleplay that I might mentally REplay during fantasies later..."Jackie Silverfall (One Happy Man) says: " I consider it consensual. I don't "get off" during cybersex and I've never done it with someone that I was not extremely fond of. In fact, our best sex was "done" while cuddled up on a rug and not moving at all. To me, the act of arousing her and making her smile in RL during the act is what it's all about (oh, it goes the other way, too)"
Ian Nider (Seeds) goes for the stiller pose "which can be kinda suggestive I guess, like naked in my garden in posed some lewd way etc." He doesn't really relate to the "cartoon-ish" side of it. As for that: Leopold, D.; Bondar, I.; Giese, M found that individual face-recognizing neurons in the inferotemporal cortex respond more strongly to caricatured faces than to the veridical representations of the same face, and suggest that the visual brain may code faces relative to a prototypical face. Ramachandran and Hirstein suggested that caricature is related to peak shift. In the peak shift effect, animals sometimes respond more strongly to exaggerated versions of the training stimuli. For example, if a rat is trained to respond to a rectangle of a particular aspect ratio, and to avoid a square, when later presented with several rectangles it will prefer the one with the most elongated aspect ratio (this being the one that is most different from the square) rather than the original rectangle used in training. Not to say you get your jollies torturing little animals.
The more symbolic art becomes, the more likely the stylization' will be expressed in certain limited poses; such a development can be seen In Christian art and in the depictions of deities In Egyptian and Polynesian art. (The Nature of Paleolithic Art By R. Dale Guthrie) The more symbolic the characters in the art, the higher the proportion of characters that are enigmatic to observers from a quite different culture. If the art is highly symbolic, it is likely that there will be a high proportion of repeated cryptic metaphors in the form of enigmatic images, such as "anthropomorphs." If there is disappointment with the cartoonish you could call it sub culture relativity (i.e, Anime and Manga "Trekkers"), or maybe it is more against easy manipulation in the "you've got to do better than that" way.
These are Cory's thoughts as standing she browses the lap top open on a table to the forums-archive.secondlife page. It is the conversation piece and the body on view.
Josephine Dorado is a social entrepreneur, strategist, performing artist, professor and Pilates instructor whose work focuses on innovation in hybrid online spaces. She was a Fulbright scholarship recipient and founded the Kidz Connect program, which is a virtual cultural exchange program that connects youth internationally through creative collaboration and theatrical performance in virtual worlds. Josephine also received a MacArthur Foundation Award in Digital Media & Learning, and continues to be involved with the Fulbright community as President of the Board of Directors in NY. She currently teaches at The New School and is the Live Events Producer for This Spartan Life, a talk show in the Halo game space. She balances her work in online spaces with her passion for teaching Pilates, combining a technology-infused life with a physical, embodied way of being. Josephine recently received the Selma Jeanne Cohen award for scholarly research in dance;Pilates 101. Class is in session. Q: What does one do on a break from sitting in a cubicle? A: Gather around the watering hole. The bci is even more demanding.
Jonathan Viventi is the seinfeld kid from down the hall; you know, the brainy one they're always trying to get to cutup. His cutup is brain cells in culture to perfect the brain implant. Actually, NYU Poly is dedicated to this. Cory is just visiting. For Jonathan, much as Cory herself, it has been All work and no play and is now the time to learn new tricks? If not now then when? Jonathan does not want to intrude. However, he is here anyway and is monitoring rl things. Professor Juliana Freire recently moved from beautiful Salt Lake City to New York City: currently working on a new initiative to 'harness the potential of data scientists and big data'; says, "If you want to learn about taxis in New York City and TaxiVis, a system that we have developed to analyze the spatio-temporal aspects of the taxi data, check our paper...". She has the run of the lab. When she approached Cory they held both hands girlfriend support stlye.
The lab monitor(s) display Pilates exercises. Of course they settle for on your feet exercises: Treasure hunt the building for proper floor matting was voted down. Exercises that look suspiciously like dancing. The result of having one to many show-offs in one room is divided attention and channel surf. The verdict is in: Virtual Sex bci style is worthy of note and maybe a research grant or two. In the meantime in polite company can we do some FPS ( First-person shooter)?
Strange Interlude
Slavic gypsy, the freckled narrow-ish face variety: a pinch cadaverous a touch hollow; a chin tapers nicely under a bit of a kinda goofy overbite; You suspect a lisp. Two girls one on one on a shipper in walmart sports, twins? No, the behind girl’s face morph slides a bit squarish., not too much! The front girl thinks this is my mother? This is not me. Body can only be a dream, a memory as primeval and lost to me as the womb. She is a cowboy who at-last puts down the plow to return to the dance. His pose watch his body spurt blood put to paces long unaccustomed. He towers over the landscape putting a foot down into succeeding fenced properties. A foot that becomes a blur of dexterity it’s parent can barely fathom. A Gunfighter ranch hand of a populace that doesn't know what the other hands are doing except to meet them. Now he is moving through a close tunnel work studded by tree roots fae lit and populated by knights in various stages of debility. There are cabinets all around. One above drips blood down on him. It opens to reveal little more than a head. The head begans talking at him. Now it is a room full of lockers of soldiers some bestial where dramas play out. One locker opens on a japanese delegation. The perspective becomes that of bystanders caught up in their own drama in the parking lot of a sports arena. During a break they watch from their side as a miles long irrigation system lands in a neighboring field. The poles that line the highways are crisscrossed cables that tower some even lost to the distance. Cables are rails along which vast Machines ply the landscape.
