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Thomas Solley STSH 4980-01 Senior Thesis Costelloe-Kuehn

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__9/3/2014__ So we need to start keeping a record of the research done each week? This will tie-into the Capstone reports too, I'm sure... I can certainly say I spent all of friday last week (upwards of 9 hours) on memos 1-4...
 * How things are going
 * Hours spent

For today I will be spending some time (5:15 pm - 6 pm) on Memo5. More will have to wait until Friday...

__9/6/2014__ Work on Memo1, Project Hopping, adding two fields from Memo4. 8:30 a.m. -- 11:09 am Found a website for that Energy Committee I listed in the third topic... . May come in handy... Not sure what I would need to be a consultant or advisor to this Committee, however. Probably a respected member in the scientific community on the subject of alternative fuels / "fringe energy," have written several acclaimed papers, etc. To have written papers I would need to have conducted lots of research/experiments, or have been hired by companies working in those fields [implies that industry is more advanced than the Gov't can control, however, which seems counter-productive to the existence of the EC].

NSF funding; , more on robots than exoskeletons, , exoskeletons not expressly named but could be part of healthcare reform?

DHARPA has a new Biological Technologies Office (BTO), whose creation was mentioned back in February, , Warrior Web system is promising .

Interesting evidence of "DIY" or printed exoskeletons / prosthetics (need a list somewhere).  , , < [FULL LISTS WILL BE INCLUDED ELSEWHERE]

Carbon nanotubes and Energy; , , requires submission of proposal though (not inherently included), , directly related!!!! , focuses on process and chemistry (still batteries though)

Work on Memo5,6,7,8. 11:10 am -- noon, Concerns on Memo5, see page for more info. noon -- 1:35pm, Continue on Memo5, 1:35pm -- 3:36pm, Memo 6, 3:36pm -- 4:04pm, 4:10pm -- 4:19pm, Memo7, //waiting for professor to email back with editable PDF for number 7, which will inform number 8//

//__9/7/2014__// //7:36 pm -- 10:20pm, Work on Memo 7 [no reply from Professor, so will have to move froward and create individual documents as needed].//

//10:20 pm -- 10:29 pm, Work on Memo8. Felling like I'm crunched for time on this one (This type of research could really take a few days to sink my teeth into good sources).//

//Will finish Memo8 tomorrow morning... I want a clear head and more time to finish this one. Will list lits to go off-of though, so can peruse and analyze on the morrow.//

//__9/8/2014__// //9:52 am -- 11:02 am, Work on Memo8.// //, found online. Will have to skim Harroway's work -- I don't have the time right now to read the full book and understand her work.//

//Add this to considerations;// ////

//__9/9/2014__// //9:33am --, Memo8.// //Hoping to finish this one today. Very difficult to understand Harroway's paper and arguments...Got a lot of potential references from it though. Sadly not all of those will be retrievable... So for now I will focus on obtaining references, then going back and annotating them.//

//Add  to list. Tech predictions?//

//I am having difficulty with Memo 8, where I have many tech-articles I was planning on pursuing from my Backlog, but few "other" sources...//

//__9/10/2014__// //9:23 am -- 10:45am, Memo8.// //Using Google Scholar this time, hopefully will find something ACTUALLY useful to me...// //, looks useful but I cannot access it.// //<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1353/hcr.2007.0034/full> --->>>>> This one gave quite a few good references, I may cite this paper and use it's resources... Though it seems to be taking the similar stance and arguments that I would be hoping to make (about social ethics with regarsd to posthumanism, "humanity as a local value," social control in a technologically superior world... [that last may still be open for me to comment on and explore]).//

//__9/13/2014__// //10:24 am -- 12:33pm, memos.// //Uncertain about the format for these, as the Framing section is supposed to be "under construction" (though when I checked this morning it had not changed from last week, when I mentioned to the professor that it needed updating).//

.. Had a go at memo9, but needs more revision. //Received an interesting document about "what is human," <>. Also found a new videogame claiming to examine the "four points of posthumanism," <Transverse, Space MMORPG><//https://transversegame.com/><http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137344-Transverse-MMORPG-Trailer-piranha-games//>. Found a// Popular Science// piece entitled "Dispatches from the Future," claiming to be written by "ten of the brightest minds in science fiction." I'm not sure I agree, but they could at least be sources of interest.

Another article on exoskeleton technologies; <http://singularityhub.com/2014/09/13/us-navy-testing-exoskeleton-boosting-workers-productivity-and-strength/>

2:12pm -- 4:46pm, Memo10-14. Pending future updates and feedback from the professor. Not sure if my Memo14 is going to be good enough.

Colin Popell; "<span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I contributed the academic links at the bottom here " <http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/wiki/books>

__9/14/2014__ 10:10 a.m. -- 11:28am, Revise Memo9 to have more specific aim. Revise Memo10 to have more concrete STS literatures. Revise Memo11 to have more specific "educational groups". Revise Memo12 to have actual calendar dates, even if rough.

__9/15/2014__ .... Was talking with an acquaintance about my thesis ideas, found a counter-argument against the second idea (impending change); "less than half of the humans on this earth have the tehcnical know-how to diagnose problems with the tehcnology we take for granted, much less fix them. How many people nowadays can change the oil on their car, change the brakes, or know what the sounds of their car-engine mean? Whereas 500 years ago, everyone -- and I mean everyone, from 5 years old, to middle-aged, to 50 years old -- could fix a broken axe. They could take a rock, hammer-off the head, use it to trim-down and plane a branch from a nearby tree, then hammer the head back on. And they could use that axe to chop down a tree, and plane that to repair a wagon-wheel, axle, etc. They had the tools and know-how to diagnose problems and fix any and all of the tehcnologies they fundamentally relied-upon."

__9/17/2014__ - New list of literature to add to the list, courtesy of Casey Goodwin; <https://www.facebook.com/thomas.n.solley/posts/10204898778372898?comment_id=10204925637564361&offset=0&total_comments=4¬if_t=feed_comment> > Add these to the list, along with the references from Colin.
 * <span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> I would point out that the Futurology list seems far from complete, and, just glancing at it, I've thought of a few that seem like they might fit. Since Colin is a member of the group (and I don't feel like waiting 5 days to post), I suggest he may wish to add the following which I recall to have various transhumanist themes:
 * <span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Old Man's War by John Scalzi (fiction);
 * <span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Mutineer's Moon by David Weber (fiction);
 * <span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Noir by K.W. Jeter (fiction);
 * <span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (fiction);
 * <span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Singularity Sky by Charles Stross (fiction);
 * <span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Love and Sex with Robots by David Levy (non-fiction).

Thoughts from in-class; Four-spoke approach (topic, social questions, conceptual framework references/data-sources outside of literature)
 * 1) Topic;
 * 2) Probe social concerns regarding the current status of "humanity" with regards to technology -- to disprove the "thickness" of the line seperating "man" from machine.
 * 3) Questions;
 * 4) Who decides what is "inhumane"??
 * 5) Why are people "afraid" of tehcnology?
 * 6) What shapes our notions of the "impossible"?
 * 7) Conceptual framework
 * 8) Explore what it is to be "human"
 * 9) compare to "inhumane"
 * 10) rebuttal of "closeness"
 * 11) list "fears" of technology
 * 12) explain why "unnecessary," OR
 * 13) re-direct fears in a particular direction, as the research entails...
 * 14) What is impossible in today's market?
 * 15) especially given {above} and market potential....

EDIT Re-imagine the "framework," see class notes.
 * 1) References
 * 2) Literature in fiction on robots and tehcnology
 * 3) social media in posthumanist fiction
 * 4) philosophical papers on "fear" and "inhumanity"
 * 5) Transhumanist associations, STS profs (swesey, woodhouse), market-firneds...

See <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xkUQ8OF-NNyGuNbmXOuQC632Vc6AqFUshRzNTHNyOfE/edit> for thought-stream at the end of class...

__9/20/2014__ Working on the full proposal today.. Became sick yesterday, hoping to get throught he entire proposal today and the Zotero-organizing that needs to be done today. Work 9:29 am --11:55am, Memo15.

Creating this in LaTeX for now, exporting as PDF. Use <http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/5019/table-of-contents-using-article-and-report-classes>, remember that this is in the class and not the class. Thus the formatting will be different.

Included [|here] is a "classic" thesis code-work. Keep in mind this one is more.... High-level than I usually work with... But could be nice for the final product. This one [|here] also is not bad -- both are strong candidates, but still more "high-level" than I am ready to go into just yet...

11:25am, having difficulty formatting the product the way I wish -- hopefully Ethan or Dave will help.

__9/21/2014__ Work on Memo15, continue my Proposal. 11:24 am -- 12:15pm. Now crunched for time... Between Capstone and Mechatronics, I don't know if this memo will be late. Was moving a friend into an apartment yesterday (which is why work was delayed). Friday I got sick...

1:15pm -- 2:45 pm, contineu with memo15.

Did get some useful feedback from a PhD friend of mine in Nuclear Engineering, Stephanie Kempf. She recommended I look into sports-disabilities and ethics behind such activities -- such as controversy over whether prosthetics give athletes an unfair advantage.

Blaise Hartley also had useful lenses for me to view from -- e.g. how technological "advancement" is not actually so widespread as people believe, and that "the future is already here -- it just isn't distributed well" (quote by Neil Stephensen?). The claim was that it takes 50 years for the technological "forefront" to be distributed along channels to reach the "rest of civilization," with examples being drawn from the African culture. While many social groups consider them "primitive," their current technology -- machine-woven textiles, bicycles, phones, computers, wifi -- would have been considered "gifts of the gods" compared to workers in America in the 1950s.

2:41pm more difficulties and insecurities with tone and flow.

3:28 p.m. -- 3:41pm, more work on Thesis. Had a conversation with myself trying to express the various views and outcomes expected from this series of Topics (at least threee are embedded in the current paper?) 8:40pm -- 11:04pm, continue work on Memo15. I lost my train of thought from the above stream... Though some planning for the Thesis Proposal probably wouldn't go amiss here.
 * 1) Who determines what is considered "human" versus "inhumane" in today's society?
 * 2) I feel that, with the dependance on social networking, networked technologies (Blaise's point about dependence is relevant here)... There is a nearly 1:1 ratio of human population to the number of phones in the world (?) ["There is almost one phone to every person on earth"?]... That we are all closer to a networked intelligence than sci-fi would like to believe. Certainly Warwick's piece on "March of the Machines" is counter to this -- thus, conclusions may be drawn from the dependance we have on tehc,
 * 3) What constitutes "cyborgs" in this world? Does mere possession of a phone? Is there a number of hours associated with this? Is a smartphone part of the criteria?
 * 4) "Fears" of technology... Such as Warwick and Dyson...
 * 5) particularly struck in this by the issues from DXHR.
 * 6) What constitutes an "unfair advantage" in augmentations?
 * 7) For my part, I believe that artificial LIMBS should only be considered "unfair" in the workplace for certain criteria; if the artificial system -- in the same jobs and workplace environment -- can achieve the same performance across all tasks as the organic equivalent. Needless to say, an artificial unitasker is "not as good" as the organic multitaskers (which the human body has already). When artificial replacements can multitask to the same degree as their organic counterparts then there shall be an open field for debate. Obviously organic multitaskers trump artificial unitaskers in my mind -- the ability to handle mutliple tasks with the same limb is strikingly importnat [and, I feel, a key aspect of human adaptability -- one of our greatest strengths].

This video is what isnpired me to become interested in an augmented world... <http://sarifindustries.com/en/#/video/>

__9/22/2014__ 1:04am -- 4:55am, Continue work on Memo15.

Work continues on the draft... Still not halfway done yet. I hope this progresses quickly. Though I suppose I may not get any sleep tonight.

... Needed to get info on the Humanity+ page to talk about current state of transhumanism.... / Use Agar's article.... <http://humanityplus.org/about/>

... it's time for sleep. For all the 3 hours I'm going to get, that is. I'll re-compile the data into Version 2 tonight (maybe).

9:24 pm -- 11:21 pm, continue work on memo15. Hoping to finish the content, and to compile it all tonight, so that tomorrow I can get to the peer reviews as well as the homework I have for other classes....

Finished with draft2 of memo15. Will conduct peer review tomorrow morning. Now.... off to sleep.

11:41pm --, peer review. Please see Proposal Reviews memo.

__9/27/2014__ ... The biggest takeaway I got from Greg was that I needed to make my proposal less-opinionated, keep my tone consistent, add appropriate content-sections to mine (see his for format), structure my "plan" to be more concrete, and to use actual sources in my proposal. Today I plan to get the "sources" aspect -- by getting-to the Zotero-structuring I had in mind for last week. Until I've done that, I can't edit my paper, much less compose the questions I wanted. Research must happen first. And so it begins... 10:10 a.m. --_, Zotero.

Cancel that. Just checked the syllabus, foudn out that I have even more due this Sunday than I thought. Three more Memos, on top of the Re-work AND some more Annotations. I'm very worried now -- I don't know if I can get it all done. This is my pennance for not doing work after the Career Faire yesterday or last night. Now I'm scrambling, and uncertain of how it will all get done. I'm scared.

10:50am-- 5:28pm, work on Annotations/Zotero. See if I can work these both together? 5:54pm -- 8:08pm, continue work on Backlog... This is turning into a much longer task than I wanted. I'm "annotating" the Zotero entries as I go, which is taking a while... The actual entries on my Portfolio are much shorter.

--> From having read about products... it seems the sci-fi ideas are cool, but society lacks the infrastructure to support either dispersal or maintenance/integration of these technologies. Perhaps due to the "lag" in technological-distribution (50 years?).

--> I could use a means of classifying how "integrated" prosthetic systems are, to help map my questions regarding the boundaries of "cybernetics."

8:08 pm, still not anywhere as close to done with the Zotero OR Backlog as I had hoped. I had been thinking that once I had finished the Backlog I could go through the 100+ Zotero articles and group them too into folders -- after which the Historicizing, Annotations, Peopling, and Structuring memos would be easy, since all my info would be grouped into the right categories for me to draw on -- with my own summaries and notes about drawbacks of each article, where I would see them being used (or not), my own reactions to the content, and self-summaries. I thought I could just draw from the Notes (e.g. summaries) for the Annotations. But it looks like that may not happen tonight -- I have an event at 9 which I am preparing for (and am uncertain if I should attend, with this much work). But it has to. Hrmmm. Have I been spending too much time with the Backlog work? While it has not been "required" for the assignments, I think it could be helpful -- but maybe I have been spending too much time on it today. No matter. The work is helpful, and should get done regardless. I just might be up for a long time tonight working on Memo 17-20... Or at least, the Backlog and 17.

8:42pm -- 8:52pm, continue with Backlog.

__9/28/2014__ ... Not sure when I will get the chance to finish the Backlog, but I feel that must happen before I do the Zotero organizing (100+), and then move onto the actual Memos. ... It's going to be another long night I'm guessing.

10:21pm -- 12:55am, continue the Backlog. Hoping to finish those. I already have a single article in the History section, which I hope to use for the Historicizing memo. The others... Well, I will have ot make it up as I go. The professor recommended I focus deeply on just a few articles for now, to try to get my bearings. So that is how it will go. However it is rather apparent that I will not have these done by 11 pm this evening. Once more unto the breach, then...

I strongly dislike the quirks this system has -- the problem with copy-pasting, the save-discrepancies...

--> So I don't know if I will actually be able to get through all the Backlog as I had hoped, then... or even the Annotations...

--> Will have to finish these in the morning I suppose... And tomorrow evening. I just hope I can get all this done in time...

__9/29/2014__ 8:53 am -- 10:55am, continue with Backlog. I'm thinking today I MAY have the opportunity to finish the backlog and get into just enough Articles to finish the Memos, but I'm not so sure about the Re-worked Proposal. That one may not get done today, we shall have to see...

Just finished the Backlog, at this point I have 0 articles in Dependance category, 4 articles in Ethics, MAYBE 6 articles in History, 2 articles in Inhumanity (cases), 1 article in Bioconservatices, and 9 articles in Use-cases (positive). That is not nearly enough for History -- most of what I have is not directly related to the Transhumanist movement. So I need more articles of that viariety (which I may indeed have). Hopefully the articles I have not looked-at in Zotero will help me to accomplish this... This evening. I also have some leads to pursue; - HAL suit from Cyberdyne - HULC suit from Lockheed-Martin - Sarcos Raytheon XOS2 system - ... some Japanese air-powered system? Not sure where from, similar to HAL and allowed users to lift 60 kg? - reference from 3/4/14 Singularityhub article to a Tokyo system that I may not have already included? - History of BTO program? - Gen3 arm system from DEKA? - John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab "advanced arm system"? - MIT Lab Biomechatronics group? Reference from Ted Talks... - Korean Daewoo hydraulic system, not previously covered? --> Histroy behind this industry too?

So I'm considering looking-into these too while going-through the articles for the Memos. Sadly it will all have to wait until this evening. I only hope I can get through the Memos (probably not the Edit?) tonight. --> One more thing. Sophia D'Antoine mentioned "German technology groups" that have been augmenting themselves? I should REALLY look into this for [Ethics] and [History]...

Also this <http://singularityhub.com/2014/09/21/our-growing-addiction-to-cognitive-ecstasy-drives-technologys-progress-and-thats-okay/> for [Dependance]... And this <http://singularityhub.com/2014/09/20/soft-robots-from-mit-and-harvard-open-up-possibilities-for-new-class-of-bots/> for more [Industry]...

8:46pm -- 11:31pm, work on Zotero articles (prior to Memo17, annotations).

Got this too, another industry example of arm tech, <http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/182202-fda-approves-the-deka-arm-the-first-commercial-mind-controlled-prosthetic-arm>

--> I don't think I can keep working past midnight... My head hurts too much. I have to hope more progress can be made tomorrow morning...

__9/30/2014__ 7:37 am -- 12:02pm, continue on Zotero (still prelude to Memo17).

Some work done on Memo 17, I think I also have some starting points for Memo 19 too. Historicizing may a bit difficult. Peopling might also be challenging, but at least I have a place to start from now.

With luck I can finish work on these tonight after 10 pm.

__10/1/2014__ So... As it turns out, not so lucky. Useful feedback from Brandon though regarding my work. 10:55 a.m. -- 3:44pm, Finish Memos 17-20. Memo 16.... May still be late.

Sortof made progress with memos 17 and 19. Turns out my focus was drifting, and now I need to go back through and get all-new content for these pieces. Great... So I'm even more behind than I thought. The plus side id that I don't have to read all those original pieces on Kurzweil and Bostrom from before 2000 -- I can focus on the modern decade with smartphone use.

--> Still have not re-edited my Proposal draft. now behind on this. NOT GOOD. But, I do have SOME info on memos 17-20. Somehting. And quite a bit of info on the 2nd-wave Transhumanism. But very little, of course, on my Topic. At least I have a bit of "background" now, which will hopefully help shape my future understanding of "humanity" controversy w.r.t. transhumanism (of the late 20th century at least).
 * As menitoned, the Bioethics probably are not needed of the 20th century -- I can now focus on 21st-century criticisms? And use my new "lens" to screen-out Bioconservatives' responses, Literatures, etc. So I have at least gained a new perspective, and a better understanding of what I need... [see Memo16 Concerns]

- feeling behind.... so behind... - I'm also behind in my conceptual framework?

Note from Chris (EE Navy guy); look into Star Trek Enterprise Season 4, Android debate")...

Consider writing 1000 words per day? Collect a hoard of informaiton...

--> Still need IRB training coarse... --> Kindof throwing-out the prior Zotero schedule i had -- since with the new one, not all the stuff I have is useful. Good to structure them, yes, but no need to annotate them all (can just base-off the Abstract?) - prof. email about going to the library (need this?) (as well as a new EBSCO/GScholar search for dependance on technology & defs of Humanity)

//__**WITH THIS NEW FOCUS, I NEED TO RE-DEFINE MY SOCIAL, THEORETICAL, RESEARCH, AND INTERVIEW**__// **QUESTIONS**

Some notes taken in-class, see <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-pmg_uL_yn3YLVH9I8OQuxe2uy8T5LSVwkDV3Yr1PN4/edit>

5:50pm -- 8:39pm, did some work on coming-up with new and better research and social-theoretical questions... but they still are not quite there yet... not profound enough.... Must get these done before moving-back to acquiring literature....

--> do I still need to re-work my Proposal? I assume yes, but if I'm past the point of no-return....

Result of thinking; Question (social-theoretical?) " In a society that has become technologically-dependent on networking and shared-information, what seperates smartphone users of today from cyborgs of transhumanism?"

-->Seems nicely profound... Does this work as a social-theoretical question, or is this more of a research-question? .... I'm going to move the notes from the GD thread to another Page in the Portfolio...

__10/5/2014__ As per the email to the professor, I'm not sure fi these are going to be done on-time today -- the latest memos, in addition to the re-worked Proposal (which is still late). I'll be trying tog et everything done, but I fear I will have to do only a minimalist job. As I just got back from Cornell, feeling tired/sore, have other work, etc.

--> Though the prof. did send me lots of emails to go through with helpful material and feedback.. 2:21PM -- 2:52pm, work on Memos 21-25...

I'm a bit confused about this one -- seems to be asking for the basic info I would think we should have already have gathered by now? It will not matter. I must find it anyways, and update the Proposal...

8:11 pm -- 1:23am, work on memos 21-25.

Taken from Facebook; <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Most intriguing.... Even more so, to my thesis. As a complicated individual, I have such a mixture of responses to this. "Yes, let me be free, let me just sit outside and read a book on weekends instead of staring into a screen," "retain humanity? Does this image, this feeling, represent a front from bioconservatives? If I see social networking as restrictive, does that make me a 'conservative'?" "What is the name for the feeling this video promotes? This, nostalgic, yet... O<span class="text_exposed_show">utdoorsy-let-me-go-camping-I-want-to-feel-the-wind-in-my-face-feel-the-sun-on-my-skin-feeling..." <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> I call myself a Transhumanist. Yet I find myself longing for a time when I was not surrounded by screens, phones, radios, cars, and computers... For me, the days of my youth in the Scouts, out on camping trips (granted I wished then and wish now such experiences came with more access to showers and running water). I don't wish for a time with "less technology," for "technology" is something that pervades our very existence in this world -- from the hospitals that deliver babies into this world to the EKGs monitoring their last heartbeats... I cannot look at this world and say we have too much technology. But I do see a world that has misconnected and wrongly distributed information. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152753344339769

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> So... I'm hoping this information will help me to understand the focus I hope ot take with this Thesis. Or Thesis 2.0, as it were. Or 1.1? Anyways. I need to acquire articles fro Zotero, then go throuhg the process of the sorting and annotating themt o unerstand my Focus better -- then I can go on to my mechatronics, which needs-must be done too... <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> ... Quite obviously I have failed to turn these in on-time... Not looking so good for my deadlines here... <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> I'm off to bed. Didn't finish any of the memos... but it's a start. More later today when I've had sleep... <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> __10/7/2014 .__ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> From Gizmodo, transcribed from Facebook; <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> " Quite an intriguing piece -- I would have like to see the makers go a bit further with the premise; what if we created an AI to continue fighting after us, and that AI began to question it's orders after it's masters were dead for centuries? We could explore the Singularity a bit, look at apocalyptic posthumanism...  <http://sploid.gizmodo.com/short-film-machines-keep-on-fighting-a-war-even-though-1643088912?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow>"

7:00pm -- 7:50pm, notes from Napkins... See transcript here <http://figuringoutmethods.wikispaces.com/Napkin+Thought-stream+7+October>. 8:00pm -- 8:27pm, re-writing transcript. Need to contact Bram for communication on Brains and hive-minds. Need to look-into questions posed... Keep this tab open for now, to refer-back to while reading and Annotating Zotero.

__10/8/2014__ 9:00am -- 11:43am, Finish Memos21-25 (please!) So... obviously I'm late to this week's assignments. Did find a cool video today looking at another posthuman future. Food for thought. "<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Another intriguing exploration of posthumanism... As the viewer I found the ending almost disturbing, wondering "did the robot also let it's other companions die through neglect? Or, as the article hints, are the origamis just symbols of the attachments it has made?" Certainly social theorists and futurists seek to explore what life like "after us" will be -- a trait of self-awareness that mankind has believed marked him out for centuries as "superior" to other forms of evolution. I can't wait to post more about this subject -- there's so much rich ethics and assumptions made that I want to point out. <http://singularityhub.com/2014/10/04/cute-robot-searches-post-apocalyptic-paris-for-friends-in-short-film-l3-0/>"

.... As mentioned, we at least have enough articles to make the Long and Short annotations work -- now it's just a matter of getting the data we need, for which the thought-stream from yesterday was actually quite useful -- in raising further questions to be considered.

1:37pm -- 3:47pm, hopefully finsish memos 21-25...? (sortof)


 * sigh* I've gotten stuck. Again. My assumptions... They are getting in the way. This is the problem with starting literature-review with "assumptions" already in-mind. I had an idea of the outcome I was looking to "prove," but... I feel my basis is not longer as secure as I had wanted. The chain of connections between ideas was tenuous, and now.... I feel like the connections between "observed phenomena" and "theoretical discourse" are not there.

"how have definitions of "the hive mind" changed from what Kurzwheil defined in 1980, to what people are using now?" "are folks talking about 'hive minds' also talking about cell-phones?" <may need to refocus perspective on where we have the most data, cell-phones may not be the best-supported> <the cellphone part may change, but the other aspects of your Query may still be useful> <trying to create the avenue to create better understanding> <will not be able to do everything> <do not have to think about failures> .... look at blogs within the community? Radio-host interviews?

Will find a lot of diversity within the community.... <try looking at the anti-transhumanist community, to get that "negative space" perspective; so that even if looking at the transhumanist community isn't showingyou anything, you can find other views opposing his> <kurzweil himself has appeared on tv and talks so many times that there are articles on him> <can also email people who have done research in transhumanism ("Grant"?) (H+ sommunity in Canada?) ask him and others if can put me in touch with the right people. We are a community of scholars, reach out to there... Ask if people have listservs.... Put your question out there...>

--> Don't forget we have that Time Magazine article from September 22, 2014 in "Never Offline," should look into that...

__10/12/2014.__ 9:00am -- 11:08 am. Finally, I can get back to my thesis. It has been a hectic week. First, the Re-Drafted Proposal; that is taking priority, today. My goal is to finish it today; if I can, and still have time, I'll go back to the Memos 26-30 for this week.

From this morning, on Facebook; " <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Rather an interesting piece -- though not hinted-at, if you dig a little deeper you'll find this short has some fairly big AI issues. How do we treat thinking robots in the workplace? How do AI constructs interact with each other? What rights do we give to "non humans"? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Quite a rich field. I look forward, as always, to seeing more." <http://sploid.gizmodo.com/short-film-working-at-a-warehouse-sucks-even-when-you-1644994924?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Reply, from Jeremy Reece; <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"<span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">This though. <span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #3b5998; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none;">@https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0KTUysrwgQ " <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">--> Hoping to get back to this later, looks rather interesting!

__10/13/2014.__ 11:05 am -- 2:42pm. Plan; two hours on Proposal, two hours on Memos 26-30. Do not have time forf the Retroactives mentioned in the email. 11:06am -- 2:34pm, Proposal. WHY IS THIS NOT WORKING I CANT SEEM TO DEFINE MY PROJECT. I feel like I've wasted the last two hours, I haven't finished Greg's notes OR my "quick" outline OR started writing on the new damn proposal!!!! AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. There's so many conflicting ideas! So many questions! So many OPINIONS i have, which I cannot back-form into appropriate Questions! I still don't have a proper set of Research/Social questions yet.... DO I EVEN HAVE A TOPIC!!?? I know that I WANTED to "show that use of smartphones in society with networking means humans are approaching a low-level cyborg" --> BUT THIS DOESNT EVEN MAKE SENSE. It is not the "smartphones" that enable the communication -- the Internet is what everything runs on -- but the MEDIA SPACES which create the environment within-which "virtual selves" can be created and stored. All that the use of these "online comm hubs" shows is that virtual communication exists. AND THERE ARE SO MANY OFFSHOOTS FROM THIS HOW DO I DEFINE AND FOCUS ON ONE WITHOUT USING ALL OF THEM. Memo25 shows my "interests" of things I want to work-on this term -- but that is a five-tem list! Too many!!! I can't.... Narrow my focus -- can't seem to find the right "overlap" between all those ideas... Problems with terminology. And my prior Queries... they all came from Opinions, again -- not from proper S/T questions. In all of this so far I've been focusing on "exploring the info behind my observed opinions," but THAT IS NOT SOCIAL SCIENCE.

... Maybe I should just go with the "how has networking changed social behavior over the past 7 years?"... It does not capture enough of the info or topics that I want, BUT I can't seem to "limit" those enough anyways. So I guess we will focus on the above Social Question and Scope.... --> Too late now anyways... I wanted to work on the Memos 26-30 now, but this must take priority. I hope..... I hope, so much ... That I can -- no, WILL -- get them done after editing Redmine after my Capstone meeting... So we continue with the re-draft. THIS IS AN EXECUTIVE DECISION WE HAVE WASTED ENOUGH TIME TODAY AS-IS. (Yes coming to this conclusion was useful, but under the time-crunch I wish it could have happened faster).

So many cometing themes and ideas...

So; currently focusing on ONE topic, ONE S/TQ (above). Has the possibility to include or FOCUS on the transhumanist community -- e.g. through some of the use-cases we collected in Thesis 1.0; the DXHR-chip woman, and the phone-chip man -- but as of now, that is not being specified in my scope, nor am I certian how exactly to do that. How to "add" this "topic"/"lens," but the language and wording of doing-so in the "aims" and "expected results" has me stumped. Will likely come back to this.

Finally got some kind of "outline" together, need research to fulfill the "Background -- Current state" and "Background -- state of literature" categories, which will inform the "Preliminary findings" category. Will sadly have to do this -- AND THE MEMOS -- later this evening.

2:34pm -- 2:42pm, Memos 26-30. Creating pages, (unable to fill guidelines just yet).

11:00pm -- 11:48pm__. Add description of the Memos 26-30, add basic content.__

___ --__, work on Proposal. REDACTED]

__10/15/2014__ .... After another late start, I'm back at it again. The plan last night WAS to go to bed early (right after I got out of class at 9), and thus get up early today to finish the memos and Proposal.... But instead I got side-tracked, stayed up until 4:30am, then woke up at 10:30. Yay me. This seems to be a trend?

So. The Memos first (worst comes to worst, I'll probably have to finish the Proposal tomorrow morning). 10:50am -- 3:36pm, Memos 26-30. Maybe I CAN get all these done if I don't spend too long on each one? Half hour, ideally? That would be nice. 11:24am, Memo26 COMPLETED. Woo! 11:241m--12:54pm, Memo27/ bio-stream. 1:26pm, Memo27 completed. Still three to go... (skip memo28) 2:40pm, Memo29 completed, two to go. 2:40pm -- 3:08pm, Memo 30, and Memo30 completed. 3:09pm --3:32pm, Memo28 and Memo28 completed.

Also found an amusing satire. <http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-women-always-answer-their-phones-unless-they,18254/>. Seems to suggest that women are more connected to their phones -- and thus to "networking" -- than men. Certainly the "bee" stereotype is one I've heard-of.

... I was hoping to get more work done on the Proposal... But, as can be seen, that didn't really happen. So in the time remaining before class I'll be prepping my memos thus-far to reflect my Concerns, so that I can "edit" them for the weekend. (Will probably happen in-class though). Tonight I have to work on the Capstone project code, as well as ballroom-dance, competition, and Thanksgiving concerns. I should also apply for jobs and internships... SO it looks like I'll have to work on the Proposal in the morning tomorrow.

I hate deferring-this. As per the bio-stream, I wish I could halt the rest of time to devote the time I want to be spending on all these tasks.... To go back and edit ALL the memos, make multiple drafts of my Proposal 2.0... Ehhh. But now ot get ready for class.

//__**CONCERNS FOR THE**__ **WEEKEND**// .... So Princeton is happening.... and I already paid for it. But I'm heavily re-considering that choice -- seeing how much work there will be for this class. A full 6 Memos! In addition-to the Backlog I have.... the Proposal re-draft (Memo16).... I haven't even started polling. Or the IRB! .... So yeah.... I'll be adding some stuff to this as we go, under the specific Memo Pages.
 * Memo 31, Draft Overview;
 * .... This requires me to have completed some research first, I'm sure. It also feels-like the memos for this coming week are starting to tie-in the actual Working Versions of my final Thesis?
 * Memo 32, Draft Background Sections;
 * ..... I think this requires me to have more background....? as-per the baove. I liekly will have ot do this one on the fly. Well, as well as the proposal.
 * Memo 33, Chapter Summaries;
 * eh..... //__**I NEED ACTUAL CHAPTERS**__ **FIRST!!!**//
 * Memo 34, Ethical Conundrums;
 * Privacy? "Humanity" questions? Technological momentum invading the "personal space"?
 * Memo 35, Broad Impact;
 * ..... Policy? Not sure what to put in here as of today.
 * Memo 36, Cover Mockup;
 * Ick. Ick.. I don't feel too good about this one.

Edits from today in-class;
 * the activity in-class has broadened my Scope again, I need a means of restricting it back down again.... Something that lets me pursue both,
 * "**//__literature-based historical comparison of social behaviors and intelligence between 2014 and 2007 with regards to smartphones__//**" (seems ONE topic I've been <range type="comment" id="526668832_1">looking-at so far)</range id="526668832_1">
 * may be useful to have an ethnographic component, or to find ethnographic components of this technology... See if there is literature already looking at this within certain ethnographic groups?
 * [negative space] "mediacl case-study of technology in smartphones and self-augmentation"
 * This seems unrelated... That the words I'm looking-for here are not the ones above... E.g. not a "medical case-study," as there may not be many persons doing this right now...
 * Having difficulty bringing-together all the core categories from Memo 25.... Having difficulty with the terminology; if were to pursue all the Topics listed, would probably form individual "implementations" (similar to the aboves), and then be trying to find the overlap (if any) between these.
 * Maybe I should make a Venn-Diagram?
 * .... don't have an easy tool for this. Ask the Professor?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Alternative;
 * "how have smartphones shaped social behaviors and self-augmentation"?
 * under social behaviors;
 * [neg tropes]
 * ++ anti-SN revolution (Prince Ea video)
 * ++ Appreciation for human contact?
 * Under self-aug;
 * "humaniity"
 * virtual presence
 * -> OHHHHHHHHHHH connect "humanity" w/ "appreciation";
 * //__**have we come to define "humanity" to require physical, flesh-based contact?**__//
 * AHHHHHHHHHHHH
 * "soft" change -- public opinion -- but NOT ENDORSED OR INCLUDED BY TRANSHUMANISTS!!! [negative space]!!!!!!
 * So; the "anti SN" and anti-smartphone movement; shows us what conservatives are "clinging" to in terms of "the human experience," which MAY represent a shifitng "public opinion" in terms of "what is needed for a human experience" or for a person to NOT be "sub-human"/"less-than human"
 * This IS a link I made myself -- not one shown in the research, YET. While the "return" / "nostalgic" feelings and ideas seem to surface-spit on SNs and smartphones, underneath that I think I detect a "dislike" if not a "revulsion" of those who have been "shaped by" or "addicted" to smartphones/SN....
 * If those technologies are "bringing us down," how are you defining the persons "caught" in that, or "manipulated"? How do you view those "negatively impacted"?
 * My mind tells me it could be a "less than human" view...
 * Which can help to shape the "humanity" definition...
 * connotation between "human" and face-to-face reactions,
 * rxn of facebbook show sthis to the surface
 * people have been talking about this, part of this is the way we interact... for a long time! "introverts"
 * the way we communicate is fundametal to our definition to "humanity"
 * "speech is given priority over writing"
 * postliteracy...
 * facebook "isnt real", favor presence over abscence....
 * ambodiment...
 * looking at ethnographics; who reacts against these? who is claiming that these persons are "becoming zombies"?
 * New Yorker cartoon, kid on the screen is a zombie or something...
 * research questions liekly to be about public views, social views....
 * anti-networkers... anti-phone users...
 * transhumanists, the self-auggers.... positive connotation to more tech, openness to tech
 * this is a nice contrast.... very few people might be aware of the "transhumanist" comeback, though?
 * definately some nice research questions about these two groups. Either way, can write about the "figure of the anti-facebook user," the "figure of the transhumanist"...
 * "what can the debate between anti-facebook users and transhumanists tell us about ... [REDACTED]
 * what can we learn from these two perspectives on the "moral weight" of "humanity" and the relation to technology?
 * how do the anti-facebookers define "humanity"?
 * (how do h+ define humanity)
 * what are the relationships to technology of the anti-facebookers' definitons to technology?
 * what assumptions abotut he future do both sides make?
 * ++ when did the "debate" begin -- if it had a beginning? When did the focus shift to smartphones and social networks?
 * Telling a story...? About the facebook-human-transhuman debate...
 * how do transhumanists respond to the anti-facebook, "human contact" debate?
 * shaping up to be a discussion of controversy rather than a data-set piece?
 * Have we [who is we?] come to define "humanity" to require flesh-based physical contact?
 * kindof the big one, got me thinking in this direction...
 * still not an "implementation,"...
 * This is a (case-studies, news-article/blurb, literature)-driven [ethnographic(?)] discussion of the debate between transhumanists and anti-social-network/anti-smartphone moevement with regards to requirements for "humanity" and "the ideal human experience"
 * That seems... better. Let's get more specific though;
 * Ethnography; use for smartphone-use-data (polls?) and social-network data [biased or unbiased]
 * case-studies & literature; use for H+ and Bioconservative-views on "what is human," "what is less than human" (soft, implicit)
 * news-article/blurb & ethnography; use for anti-facebook/antiSN/antismartphone related data and arguments for "what should be the ideal human experience" (explicit) and "what is not healthy"/"what is sub-human" (soft, implicit?)
 * literature; transhumanist responses [if any!!!!! PERCEIVED NEGATIVE SPACE HERE, POTENTIAL FOR USE] to the anti-SN claims of "technology is making us zombies"
 * IMPORTANT!!!
 * ... May be able to suggest my own "responses" to this? That would be an interesting way to wrap-up a paper...
 * Ok, making some good headway, I think the above questions will be a good place to go-from this weekend...
 * Ok, making some good headway, I think the above questions will be a good place to go-from this weekend...

__10/16/2014__ ... So I emailed the professor the above points yesterday evening. Sadly I did not have the time I had wanted to do either just the research, or to finish my Proposal this morning as I had wanted -- I instead was looking for code sources for Capstone. I'm thinking though that if i can answer the Preliminary Findings and State of Phenom and State of Literature, that will put me in a MUCH better position to be able to actually do the Memos for this weekend. The Proposal re-draft itself may only be an exercise in "compiling all the stuff I know," which is still a useful exercise.

Oh, and I'll be making a new Zotero Folder -- Thesis 2.0 -- to contain the special "amalgamation" of stuff I find this evening (hopefully 8pm to ?). That way I can keep my thoughts and whatnot seperate.

__10/17/2014__ 11:30am -- 12:54pm, work... (summarizing stuff) Turns out we got another late start. Went to bed early last night, however woke up at 2 and couldnt sleep, so I acquired and watched a film called "Automata," made in 2014. Rather an interesting film -- deals with the Singularity, posthumanism (apocalyptic) -- rather intriguing. Got me thinking about a few things... before I slept in and got a late start. Well, not "late" -- I did sleep past my 7 amd 8 alarms, and then took too long showering/getting dressed before my 10am meeting. Afterwards I had to run some errands, which cut further into my time. - Quote "look at my hands. These hands, these parts, were shaped by human minds, human intellect. Your race continues to live on in us." [droid]. - (Protagonist) "Does it speak?" (points to a robot-built entity). (Cleo) "It won't need to." ... As well as some generic thoughts on "how savage will mankind become at the end of our days"... - Will we fight each other amongst ruins for equipment and a disintegrating economy/standard of living? - Will we seek a method of "continuing to live"? Will we be obsessed with remaining the "top organism" in the world? - Will AI entities eventually evolve past the original "humanoid" designs -- to encompass the "art" that THOSE beings envision? (Thoughts to The Matrix [machine city]" - .... Thoughts on "preparing for AI"... The H+ movement claims to want to prepare humanity against the coming of the Singularity -- collaborating to find the "best approach," as well as "how to define what approach is best." Got me thinking about "Sync"... The anti-hero in that film claimed he was on a mission to meet with the AI, to "prove that humanity was not a threat," beleiving that only he was qualified to be the first to meet-with and perhaps 'shape' the AI's perceptions of its human creators. This got me thinking... How would I react? Probably the same way that the protagonist did... In both "Automata," and "Sync"... Be as open to dialogue as possible, recognizing that our conversations would, after a time, stop -- in the words of one of the antagonists in "Automata," "after the ninth day, our talks stopped -- not because it couldn't understand us, but because we could not longer understand it."

//__**Thoughts; (preliminary findings, prior to New Research to Answer Research Questions)**__// On social media and the emergent social behaviors I take umbrage-with; - .... As per "The Merchants of Cool," "Branded" [2012 film?], "Tagged" (read at ISF?), and (read at ISF, teen who talk against corporations, ran his own website, faked his death because corporations used his image).... The "detached image" of what "society" considers "mainstream," "popular," "cool"... These [aside from their related queeries of what "cool" actually is, or what/how one determines "popular opinion"] are fed-by extremist opinions, fringe cultures -- whose ideas are then re-fed into society, to create a "common illusion" made of extremes. These "extremes" can form idealities -- some of which are represented in "the common mind" as some of the memes I discussed in Memo 29 [Describing Practices].... And it is these "stereotypes," these "uncouth" idealities, are what I dislike. The video from Prince Ea comments on some fo the social behaviors that have grown-from and seem to represent some of these memes... Yet these did not just "spawn" sumiltaneously from nowhere. It would seem to me that these new social behaviors stem, in fact, from some of the "common internal emotions and drives" that have become embodied through some of the memes and behaviors in our society today... Specifically, sexuality (seems ot be the largest), and "party". In other words -- it is due to technology, such as smartphones, which have allowed for dissemination and access to information -- that has allowed for some of these "uncouth" behaviors to be spread as diversely as they have been. Yet there is more to this, I feel. While the media (and technology) helps to spread (and enable) social behaviors, something in the politics or "standards" must have also changed. The 70s and 80s likely have had something to do with it -- as well as the new laws that have allowed for "more free speech," thus allowing more "personal expression" -- which may have also contributed to the "outpouring" of scandals and "scandalous behaviors" (which 70 years ago I feel would have never been seen by the public eye). The "information revolution" has, if you will, made the public more hungry for knowledge -- where that knwoledge now stems-from and contributes-to the "personal, private life." Perhaps aggressive journalism (stemming from Watergate?) has also played a part in this.

On the Singularity; (See above).... I feel that Ray Kurzweil's work must be fairly important, and it is a shame I have not yet been able ot get my hands on his original works -- as he seems to have stemmed and created the "Singularity" topic himself. Almost every article I can remember having-read which discussed "the singularity", AI, or Robots referred-to Kurzweil in some form, usually by name.

Maybe I could try an interview from someone within the H+ organisation though, for an "organisational" response to the claims made by the Prince Ea video.

Which reminds me. I need to find if that "thought" representa a movement (just as my desire for "soemthing greater" found a movement in Transhumanism). Need to begin my actual research -- to answer the questions we raised last class. I'll be putting those -- and the info I find -- within another Page.

12:54pm --3:36pm, answer research questions, compile "state of the phenomonen" (from both sides), "state of cultural and social literature" (from both sides), and summarize my "preliminary findings." What I've been able to put in-here so far has been useful, but.. there should be more.

Looking to use this time as a "get info", so I can summarize for the Findings, so I can craft an Argument, so I can make Chapters and Overviews...

I've found some good info on the lack-of-an "anti-facebook cohesive movement"... And am starting to find similar with the "anti Social Network". HOWEVER, may need to search within some kind of demographic/ethnographic -- just because a united group doesn't exist does not mean "localized" institutions are missing. If I find something relevant though (//__**so far the anti-facebook claims are "monetary" and "privacy" only, not related to my core**__ **categories**//), then I may pursue more thought. Right now it looks like the "anti-facebook" stuff isn't going to be useful to me, so I'll stop looking into it.

5:24pm -- 7:21pm, continue work on Prelim stuff. ... Not finding info as fast as I would like. Granted, I am trying to be thorough -- which could be useful, in and of itself. The temptation to lounge back and not do anything is strong -- particularly since I've been sitting inside typing for much of today. I've also gotten distracted by the prospect of other Topics -- perusing just the "self-augmentation" controversy, for example. However, that is not my focus -- I am, as per the questions above, trying to discover more about the perceived Negative Space with regards to "unplugged" defintions of "humanity" versus transhumanists'. With that in mind, I'm off to get some dinner and stretch my legs a little... As I need a physical break, not just a mental one. I'll keep the salad for later in case I get hungry. Probably be up for much of tonight making a pass at the memos, too... As that needs doing today. Even if all I can do is write a few sentences outlining my approach to each.. it will help get my mind thinking, and probably revising my thoughts as I go through the competition tomorrow. Now. Food.

8:00pm -- 1:10am, Continue with Prelim. I'm quickly reaching the saturation-point for my brain, which is... not good. Not when I still have so much left to do, so much left to be done.

... I really hit the gold-mine with the "anti-smartphone" topic... There is so much info on this, great thing that it's a current-topic... Lots of opinion and few use-case studeis, of course, but tstill useful1

1:11am -- 2:01am, Memos 31-36, first pass (will have to finish and add-to them on Saturday or Sunday or something...) 1:31am, finished first-pass at Memo 33, Chapter Summaries. 1:34am, finished first-pass at Memo 31, Draft Overview [pending more research]. 1:43 am, finished first pass at memo 32, Draft Background Sections. 1:49am, Memo 34 -- Ethical Conundrums, first pass complete. 1:56am, finished first-pass at Memo 35 -- Broad Impact. 2:01am, finished first-pass at Memo 36 -- Cover Mockup.

__10/19/2014__ I wanted so much more from this.... So much more, from my time here and my education, from industry and research, from society and the economy.... I wanted so much more, and so little has happened. I wrote a note with some of this in there, but I feel I need a list -- like the Memo 4 -- and create a lsit of how I had expected these technologies to work, and how they have not.


 * sigh* I should go out and interact with other persons... Especially as per principle. However, after talking with a friend of mine -- Adam Siegel, from UMass Amherst -- about my views on current industry and technology, he said, "The way our society functions, we've sacrificed a lot of common knolwedge for the ability to use technology." I had mentioned to him Blaise's comments on technological distribution and dependency... His response has me thinking. What, indeed, have "we" sacrificed in order to have technology such as computers so wide-spread? It is true that we cannot fix broken components anymore -- we moved from the era of "physical replacement" (e.g. the plastic and ceramic era prior to the 2000s) to an age of transistors -- where even the resistors used on circuitboards are smaller than a grain of sand. My work for my Capstone Project.... It's shown me how difficult replacing those kinds of parts can be. I acquired tools to replace "ceramic" and "plastic" parts [diagnose with voltmeter, oscilloscope, replace with resistors and parallel=plate capacitors, diodes, etc.]... But there isn't the knowledge or the tools for me to fix my computer's motherboard. Not anymore. I can fix a protoboard or breadboard, yes -- but we no longer use that technology. Thus, a small fraction of the disgust I have for my education... We don't teach how to fix the tech we take for granted.

I'll review and add more to the Memos 31-36 later tonight, probably, and over the enxt few days. It's not perfect -- I wanted to be done on Friday -- but right now it's more important for me to get my Capstone and Mechatronics work done. After that, Ic an finish going through the articles on Anti-Smartphones, and do some research into the H+ Response.

6:30pm -- 7:30pm, Napkin thought-stream. See SingularityHub article, <http://singularityhub.com/2014/10/19/mindware-upgrades-will-make-humans-as-technological-as-we-are-biological/>. Created a thought-stream from this. Inspired a voice-memo, sent to Adam and to Dr. Brandon. The article itself seems very in-line with my thoughts, but promted even more thinking along the lines of "Automata" and "9".

__10/21/2014__ Did not get to the memos as I had wanted -- needed sleep after working on Capstone. I'll be putting the napkin-thoughts up today though, and probbaly doing more reflection with them. I also intend to finish annotating those five articles I didn't get to on Friday. Hopefully these will put me in a better position to make a more-complete pass through the Memos (which are still only sketches at best). -->> Yeah.... that cover mockup... Really isn't artistic yet. Or art. Or visual.

11:56 am, heard an interesting ad on Pandora radio, from "Jackthreads"... "Here to connect you to other people, the Internet, and whatever comes after the Internet". -->> RATHER ODD, yes?

Plan so far is to finish those 5 articles of "newlog" this evening, so tomorrow morning and afternoon I can "revise" and update the other memo-content. Hopefully. We shall see. I'm not too enthused by how little time I have this week (Capstone is picking-up the pace, as my group is actually meeting to do code this week).

4:22pm --, summary and catching-up of recent thoughts/events. --> Got some cool stuff from Jeremy Reece, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_Horizon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale#Examples_in_science_fiction

The 'noosphere' link got me thinking about my Stream on Sunday about 'restricted perspectives,' complimented by the super-meta 'Log Horizon' anime -- questions of virtual, meta-virtual, meta-physical, 'what is real,' 'NPCs and politics in a pseudo-meta-virtual-parallel-world,'...It's a bit of a brain-bender. I'd love to see what professor Brandon thinks about it.

On the subject of the brain-blast, I got very excited talking to Jeremy about the "inherent limitations" I saw of organic beings -- yet in considering this perspective with the "Automata" lens, then what I think and wish for our future will mean nothing... as there stands little chance of my consciousness surviving past the onset of the "synthetic" age... Regardless of my intentions (as per the "Sync" lens) towards uploading myself into a virtual or synthetic body, my consciousness was still shaped by organic limitations -- and I cannot (by definition) envision an existence where I live without those limitations, freed and able to see something "beyond human"... The elements of science fiction that have demonstrated such a "synthesis" (Star Trek 1?) are not consistent in their depiction of "what happens to the mind after gaining such inhuman knowledge" (yes, there is the new film "Lucy," but no I have not seen it yet, nor do the reviews look promising. Unlike "Limitless," it appears that the transition is a one-way road without communication possible to "lesser beings."). So... While I, like the antagonist of "Sync," would seek to make-well against The Singularity, while I would seek to transcend the physical limits of my body and of my organic ancestry... Would it destroy me? And not the .... organic, primitive self-preservationist instincts that have evolved in our bodies. I refer, instead, to the memories and experiences -- the actions and perspectives -- that define my consciousness. Would I retain my memories? Would I still see with multi-varied perspective? These are the downsides I see -- that the process of synthesis leads to a destruction of the organic-elements, rather than a preservation (or "hybridization" or slow-transition, vis. cyborgs). -->> That even though I am interested in preserving such a synthetic creation.... I might not continue to exist. I might be deemed... "irrelevant." "Unneeded," "unnecessary."

The ideals, of course, are that the process of being "freed" from an organic body would allow my memories to be preserved, and to add the following; - retain senses of sight, taste, touch, sound - retain humanoid movement - retain self-awareness - retain autonomy And enhance or replace the above, as the whim or dependency comes to pass. I see myself with a perspective.... Larger, even, and more-encompassing, than that which I have now -- able to process an unlimited amount of data at a time, rather than relying on "cues" for memory or resorting to external physical storage. I've only seldom felt that my views encompassed the world... Only rarely felt that I could reflect on the world as a whole, sad yet resolute... Sad that others cannot see what could be, cannot understand the amount of information I have on which I make my choices... Sad that organics are so.... Limited. So blind. I cannot actually put myself in this view now -- I can only dimly see it as a future in my head, feel the echoes of that sadness and of that... Omnipotent awareness. That... almost god-like state... A conscious knowledge that transcends all the RAM in existence, to look-down and percieve all the data that comprises Man and Earth at once... This is, in essence, what we refer to as a "god," a being -- an entity -- whose knowledge and sight passes so far beyond our gaze, that we are but insects to such a being.

That knowledge, that.... power... is what I see when I read fiction. Yet as Jason at the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War was described to be... " So as Jacen fights Onimi, he manages to achieve oneness with the Force, knowing that he'll never achieve this state again while simultaneously knowing that he'll spend the rest of his life trying to do so" < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unifying_Force>

That feeling... That conscious knowledge of having ahieved the ultimate, and knowing that it will not be attained again... That description of that self-awareness and prescience is something I have myself felt -- that prescient awareness, that is, NOT a state of "godhood." I'll look to find the full description of this -- for like passages in "Childhood's End," "Sphere," "3001," and "Ender's Game," that is a passage that struck me deeply. As well as the description of Luke vs. Raynar Thul at the end of the Swarm War trilogy, and the Reading of the Book Of Night With Moon from "So You Want To Be A Wizard." I shall find these, I shall record the progenitors of my views and my awareness...

__10/22/2014__ 10:00am -- _, transcribe Napkins, annotate the 5 articles from Friday, update Memos 31-36 [goal, may not be realized]. I'm thinking that, given the nice way in which all this information I've been finding is coming-together, it might be best for me to just... Start writing. Maybe. My thought-stream from Tuesday and Sunday was about the limits of the human noosphere inherently constrained by the limits of our organic bodies... Which may have a connection to the anti-Singularity, Slow-Tech, "Pushback" movement... In the "hegemony," the reasons for the shifting of public opinion -- or lack thereof. As that "Times" article I mentioned from way back when [there are three titles to the damn article -- September 22, 2014 edition of "Time" Magazine, page 40-47] goes to show [besides a scathing review of Apple's product-development process], the "fears" that I've seen [also in the Ethics 1 and 2 material from PD3, see attached]

could stem from this seeming "inability to see past the end of our time," which as-per my own thought-stream is an "inherent" fear -- that "humans fear what they don't understand, or can't control."

1:49pm, finished the "articles" from last week, though I'm far from being done. I've got some Sources to go to for interviews, as per that Stream -- however, I don't know enough of the H+ response to the underlying and surface complaints of the "disconnect" community. And I still don't know if the "trends" I've seen actually exist; - "disconnect" [self] - "slow tech" [haaretz] - "pushback" [Seattle Times] I need to compare the three "groups" of "conservatives" I defined with the three mentioned in the Seattle Times article, but I think that needs to wait. I need to get the napkin-stream onto [|here], and to try some kind of summary. I know I've got a strong "Negative" understanding, now I need to search the "negative space" I perceive to see if my assumptions are real -- if the H+ community actually has any, or is indeed missing, a "response" to the "disconnect" movement.

2:24pm, finished typing the Thought-Stream from Sunday. As-per my comments on the Thought-Stream page, I don't have a "coherent" argument yet -- not one in-line with the Overview or Chapters I made for this week (which still are in Rough form). ... Yes, I could turn this into a discussion of the philosophy behind the hegemonies I saw in the "conservative" complaints, but... That wouldn't tie-in all the stuff I've been trying to learn. Sure, it got me really excited -- that social/humanity analysis felt like it was bringing-together some really deep, fundamental connections across the three years I've been looking-into technology and Transhumanism -- but it doesn't... doesn't really address the Concerns raised by the Conservatives, or suggest a Compromise between the H+ and Disconnect communities.

So it doesn't look like I'll be getting-to updating those pages today. Pity. Well, I finally have some more research, which is great -- though I need to talk to; " Ooh! Jay Dolan, the mind behind "the anti social media" blog, could be an interview-source!!!!

Students at the University of Washington Information School, could be an interview-source!!!!

Potentially ask Nick Bostrom about his response to the "technology addiction" problem -- reference the slang, could be an interview-source!!!

Potentially ask Blake Snow from "The Anti-Technologist" for a "conservative" viewpoint? Seek to clarify his arguments perhaps..." [from Oct.17 research page].

So let's get to those three things we need to do; 1) Check my three Groups (Cellphones are a Distraction from Public Surroundings and a Hazard; Networking Technology lost humans' connection to Nature, and More Profound Experiences are found without Communication Technologies; and Computers/Tablets/Phones Separate Us in Interpersonal Communication) against those mentioned in the Seattle Times paper for consistency. 2) Find if the "pushback," "disconnect," "unplug," and "slow tech" trends actually have an organized Movement. (still uncertain). 3) Find the H+ response to the claims of the Three above groups I mentioned. Find also their views on Internet, Connectivity, Evolution, and Smartphones (Extropian?) So I'll be looking-at that.

So, as-per the Oct.19 Stream notes, we didn't find any concerted "response" from the H+ or significant pro-H+ figures regarding the "slow-tech movement," which doesn't really mean much -- that one avenue didn't pan-out. It's possible there is an "extremist" version of the slow-tech movement, just as the Extropians were the hardcore pre-WTA-transhumanists... So. 1) Seek evidence of an extreme "throwback" "regression" "conservative" group within the Slow-Tech Movement. 2) Seek evidence of discourse between H+ Movement (whole) and the Big H+ names (as per Agar's article), to see if there are contentions SEPARATE from the "bioconservative"/"bioLuddite" talks. 3) Seek what separates the BioLuddites from Bioconservatives from "hardcore-regression-conservative-throwback-Slow-Tech-Movement-group"-ers, if the latter exists. 4) Seek a perspective on technological -progression -- from the STS community? Could be a branch from the two "big" groups, OR a third perspective... 5) Look-into the "shared views" between H+and STM -- what views or persppectives do they share? What do they differ-on in terms of definitions of "ideal human"?

__10/24/2014__ 7:48 pm -- 8:10pm, Stuff.... Since I'm still not sure of what to do for Memo 37. Emailed the professor on Thursday, still no response.

Notes from midday today; Graphene article; interesting, but unhelpful. See Zotero summary.

1 hour talk with Michael Candels last night at 7-8pm, Depressing. Future of mankind uncertain, but with little hope. Continued the conversation I started with the prof. on Wednesday -- humans not ready, inherent limits of organic species, Syn/Automata, making my brain hurt by "forcing it to think in ways it can't and was not designed to," etc.. he recommended I write a book about this -- about one of the four ways I saw humanity verging in the next 200 years: "hivemind" /digial existence; "cyborg"/transition phase (won't and can't last long, maybe 50 years); there is the "luddite" method, which is to restrict any and all research into robots/halt movement of tech entirely; and there is the "merge ourselves into synthetics once they arrive" approach. Each has limitations -- as per above, I worry that we organic beings cannot handle the latter one, even once removed from our organic bodies and organic brains, simply because our entire perceptions are made and our noosphere created within organic "constructs." I also worry that there will be persons like the antagonist from "Sync" who take it upon themselves to try to meet and greet The Singularity, but who will be lost in the process and will only cause harm. I worry that Humanity is not ready for The Singularity or for an apocalypse of any kind -- we are too seperated, and have no joint work into furthering "the human race" as a whole. Perhaps the prof's advice about designing a "worldwide institute" for R&D and for Ethics-thinkers would be a great suggestion to make, so as to lay some groundwork for such things to "happen" (creating the positive space).

Also had an hour and a half talk with Tulsa Scott today over lunch about the above topic, about military restriction of info, about PT, and about nuclear reactors in the Navy.

So this evening, will send another email tot prof about the Memo, will hopefully trascribe the convo between Colin and I into something on here, will send emails to the 4 persons listed at the end of the Oct. 19 stream (?), and will answer the five questions from Weds. And do my accounting. And somehow get more motivation for the rest of this semester.

9:00pm, finished with Facebook and Ballroom task-managing (pictures and albums onto facebook, done). 9:01pm -- 11:30pm, send emails to the four persons.[REDACTED, instead continued convo with Colin] Then need to do accounting.... --> Convo with Colin Popell showed me (as I tried to summarize the Slow Tech movement to a fellow transhumanist) that I was mistaken -- Slow Food has been around for 30+ years according to him, and [as per the actual Wiki page I had on "Slow movement," <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Movement>] these disparate elements are segmented by design. Slow-Tech (slowtech.org) is actually a Wordpress page with very few hits -- a blog page, not an organizational page, it seems. As per the Wiki page on Slow Movement, "<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px;">The Slow Movement is not organized and controlled by a single organization. A fundamental characteristic of the Slow Movement is that it is propounded, and its momentum maintained, by individuals who constitute the expanding global community of Slow. Its popularity has grown considerably since the rise of <span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px; text-decoration: none;">[|Slow Food] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px;"> and Cittaslow in <span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px; text-decoration: none;">[|Europe] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px;">, with Slow initiatives spreading as far as <span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px; text-decoration: none;">[|Australia] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px;"> and <span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px; text-decoration: none;">[|Japan] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px;">."

UPDATE; convo with Colin proving to be both more usefula nd frustrating than expected. Useful, as he is the first line of "transhumanists" that I have approached about my theories [if I can communicate my ideas to him effectively, then I stand a chance of communicating to the Stanford Transhumanist Association] -- yet frustrating, as it IS challenging me to rethink my assumptions and how I go about proving/providing evidence for my claims. [10:29pm, convo continuing, but will also start drafting those emails to the 4 persons as I mentioned. Will attach here as a single document, which I will send off to the Professor to review/critique before actually emailing the appropriate persons].

--> Did not actually send emails, or transcribe message -- convo unfinished, though did create a new page for it here ; and am currently drafting the emails, am halfway through the second one. Will have to finish in the morning. Plan; - Wake up, finish email drafts, send email drafts to Professor for feedback. - Wait for convo to end, then transcribe. - Seek to answer the five Questions above. No more than 15 minutes each. No more than hour or two total, for all up to this point. - Begin mechatronics homework 3. Work on this for most of tomorrow, until practice 3-5. - After practice, send emails to PD3 group about Simulation -- begin discussing roles, and spend 30 minutes on research/general knowledge. No more than an hour total for this. - Continue work on mechatronics for an hour, until 7pm. - Begin contacting Laura in Capstone about code, get Kelsie's code working on my computer. Update Redmine as needed. Spend no more than 15 minutes on this. Spend 45 minutes looking-for buffer. Spend no more than an hour total on this, until 8pm. - Return to Thesis-questions, if needed and if unfinished. Spend another hour on this, if needed, until 9pm. - Go off to movie. Relax, unplug, rest, communicate with other human beings and leave computer behind. Socialize for rest of night. - Sunday morning, wake up at 7, prod Ethan about MPS report. Spend 5 minutes on this. Spend 2 hours on this until 10am. - 8am to 10am, 2 hour time-block for more Capstone stuff, if needed. If not, spend time on Mechatronics homework until 3pm and practice. - Practice 3-6pm. Then get dinner until 6:30pm. - 6:30pm - 7, continue/finish Mechatronics homework. - 7pm midnight, MPS report. - Midnight to 2am, accounting. Will update this as things pass -- see how well I can keep to this schedule.

__10/25/2014__ - Woke up 9:00 am, couldn't actually wake up at 8 (was up until 3).

9:24am -- 1:31pm, finish the drafted Emails. Had to add an extra one to the list in order to possibly reach Dr. Bostrum. Will email this doc to the prof for feedback.

1:31pm -- 1:39pm, transcribing what I have from the convo with Colin to an MSW document. Will restrict access to this though -- I won't be putting it online, as I do not have express permission of the owner to do so. Yet I need to keep a record somehow, thus this will only remain in my personal files until I have "recordable" materials.

1:40pm -- 2:36pm, 5 qs from Wednesday. I don't have the time to begin Mechatronics before practice -- If I actually go to practice, that is. So I'll spend 15 minutes per question, THEN drive-out on Mechatronics I suppose?Look to the Memo 37 stuff for my notes from today (research findings, etc.). --> Didn't actually finish them, I feel like i need more info but that I don't know where to start!!!!!!!!!!!

__10/28/2014__ 6:38pm -- 8:32pm. Looking-through some interesting links... Seeing what I can find on Singularityhub and on Kurzweil. The results are not as good as I had hoped. http://singularityhub.com/2014/10/12/million-robot-revolution-delayed-iphone-manufacturer-foxconn-reluctantly-hires-more-humans/ http://singularityhub.com/2013/03/10/leading-neuroscientist-says-kurzweil-singularity-prediction-a-bunch-of-hot-air/ http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed/dp/0670025291 http://singularityhub.com/2012/10/29/exclusive-ray-kurzweil-interview-with-singularity-hub-dont-miss-it/ http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/ray-kurzweils-dubious-new-theory-of-mind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone http://news.discovery.com/space/ambition-beautifully-blends-science-art-and-fantasy-video-141024.htm?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=MythBusters http://singularityhub.com/2014/10/20/when-the-internet-sleeps/

On the bright side the prof. finally responded to say what the memo (due tomorrow) actually is about... So I'll be handling that (in part) tomorrow. Still trying to do Mehcatronics, still encountering roadblocks with that where folks are not responding to my queries on Redmine... Bleargh.

And I've run out of space in Zotero. Lovely.

__10/29/2014__ Bought more space on zotero.

I've got lots of sources to look through, linked below. Need to update the Emails, then send them out (feedback in the notes). Need to create Skeleton framework. Need to do Lit. Review.

Stuff to look-thru; http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/clinpsy http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/ecolsys http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/genet http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/genom http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/neuro http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/psych http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/biophys http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/conmatphys http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/matsci http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/nucl http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/anthro http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/energy http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/lawsocsci http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/orgpsych http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/polisci http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/publhealth http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/soc http://sth.sagepub.com/

I'm hoping to get the "academic" stuff on Transhumanist technlogy and academic concerns through these portals. Hopefully take less than 5 minutes per item? Hour and a half, total?

__10/31/2014__ Spent 7pm -- 11:30 pm at the Moral Robots seminar last night, also had an interesting convo with a new friend about thought processes and the Singularity. I also do now have an interviewee in Dr. Selmer, I need to email him about meeting in the week of November 10. --> Also email the CogSci PhD student about my thesis, he will be interesting to talk about "unintended consequances of technological advancement."

So. Quite useful. Hoping to tackle the Interview-emails today as well as the Literatures I mention above.

__11/1/2014__ Was not in fact able to do any Thesis work yesterday. Will not be able to today either, will have to wait until tomorrow. Will let the Prof. know this.

8:33pm -- 10:24pm, work on the emails and interviews I need to send out (Selmer, Gertler, Milanese, Snow, Black, Bostrum, Giuriou, and Dolan). link to Mr. Dolan's questions; <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QdX2vuoAmRpX7-T5nxmKozkxCojKVWlG08-ACy5vL1g/edit> link to UWash questions; <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q8S454AjQzJFALBK-FWmf-6B5aK8yxG1AVYjfMoGpT4/edit> link to Nick Bostrum <range type="comment" id="529164466_1">postscript query</range id="529164466_1">; <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vwuzsq3c5SBa4ZIxO2y4NnxAzwzvblsHGz9IRVYfJpo/edit> link to Nick Bostrum questions; <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I7I53yTe4I58KUWguY1Dkr1e9ERcEWQyghGEr3DvmKI/edit> link to FURTHER Blake Snow questions; <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uh3WDBy3abCSo0Rm-zOH_6rtuQ5sj20JqJxqlBR-50c/edit>

__11/2/2014__ 8:30am -- 1:00pm, generic thoughts about my Thesis and the direction it may take. 2:00pm -- 3:20pm, conversation with my sister over the phone regarding my Thesis, the anxieties I have over the direction of humankind, the disparity and lack of distribution of technology, the worries I have over "Sync," my own ambitions and wants for the future and for science which guide my work in STS... 3:20pm -- 3:38pm, working on Memo 38 and 39, Primary Data #1 and #2 (which I am skewing a little bit). [quick break for some job apps] 4:11pm --5:22 pm, continue with Memo 38 and Memo39. [minus some shenanigans with a broken table, and attempting to fix it by hand].[Also I should hit the 200 edit-mark with this comment]. -->> I should probably include, in one of my follow-up emails to them, that time for me is limited -- and to ask for what the "bare minimum required" would be (in terms of background sources) that I could use to bolster my paper...

Still missing a skeleton... E.g. to begin making a skeleton as-per Dr. Kuehn's Defence Paper, which he recommended we begin making. I think the process of doing this would indeed be helpful, but I also think it will not be much more "complete" than the Chapter Summary memo I have now (as I am currently missing data and interviews).

6:16pm -- 8:07pm, working on Memo 37 (e.g. gather Annual Review and STHV data, transcribe, and finally make a true Literature Review [even a skeleton])

Hmmm. I would like to do some design work for my Cover Sketch, as I have not yet actually done anything on that. I may do that tonight if I have some time? It would be a nice thing to sink myself into, at least.

__11/4/2014__ (10:24am -- 11:33am) I got a response yesterday from Dr. Ramprouliou -- Dr. Bostrum is currently travelling, but he will forward my message and interest to him when he returns. Most excellent. I sent a follow-up response thanking Dr. Ramprouliou for his prompt service.

This morning I had a meeting at 7:30 in the morning with Bob Mayo, the head of the Library info-services, with regards to my use of information, e.g. the number of downloads I did on Annual Review on Sunday. Thankfully that was resolved with as minimal a conflict as possible (I probably can't get more data from their website for quite some time), and I can continue with the articles (only the 41 I have now I suppose) remaining. Emails between myself, Brandon, and Jennifer can be found in my STSH folder [internal].

I also got a response from Dr. Gomez and Ms. Morrison, which I will not put in full here. Dr. Gomez' reply was to direct me to another, longer piece of work, < code Morrison, S., & Gomez, R. (2014). Pushback: Expressions of resistance to the “evertime” of constant online connectivity. First Monday, 19(8). doi:10.5210/fm.v19i8.4902

You will find this and other derived work at @http://rgomez.ischool.uw.edu/node/36 > code > So... Yeah. I'll have to look at that when I have more time.

The reply from Ms. Morrison was much more interesting; her reply actually addressed my Questions that I had linked. However, I am not entirely sure of where to take this response -- the results are a bit confusing to me. What does her reply mean in terms of my findings? Without quoting her entire email -- which I feel is not... appropriate.... on this forum-space -- My ideas and conclusions of the three spaces I saw are... In need of some revision, after looking-through this. However, I think I need to discuss this with someone before I trly understand what her reply means. //__**Or at least, I need some time to digest it.**__//

__11/5/2014__ 5:35pm -- 7:06pm, working in Memo 40 on the STHV, AR, and Critical tech articles (annotaitng). Got some great direction and feedback from Brandon today in class. Will be using and ofcusing the UWash stuff and Bostrum interviews towards the "STS"/"academic" view of the two "sideS" of the conflict. -->> The Blake and Snow are just for clarity on the SM side. -->> The Selmer is just for more on "grounding" in STS.

Will focus this weekend in Academic and STS side of things, get critical thought, immerse self in stuff I can actually cite. -->> Still missing true "argument" for my thesis of course, but that may not come-together until AFTER I have a cohernet set of "literature review sources in acadmeics and hsitory."

__11/8/2014__ 10:00am -- 12:04pm, thinking about Thesis and evaluating Singularityhub articles. Also, looking-through the COD: Advanced Warfare. Quite an interesting use fo technology -- the exoskeletons used there are rather.... whimsical, in my professional opinion. A single frame per limb (arms, legs) to augment movement and strength? I feel that if a real person were to use those, their limbs would snap from the force of the motors. --> And those "smart grenades"? The "threat grenades"? A useful mechanic, sure -- but how does a (what looks to be) "laser" system identify "hostile targets"? Do all the "enemies" use some unique EM signiture? (Why not just remove it then,,,,?) Eh. The actual plot and technology is not as illuminating nor as interesting as I had hoped.

__11/9/2014__ ... Didnt get through as much Mechatronics yesterday as I had hoped, still have the homework to finish... 10:07 am -- 3pm, mechatronics homweork 4.

__11/11/2014__ 10:40 am -- 11:49am, memos 40 and 41. This time I won't get distracted by other work, I have time now!

First off, the four articles from Sunday; (Spent.... 1 hour? On sunday, maybe less, looking at these.) http://singularityhub.com/2014/10/30/embrace-tomorrow-launch-today-singularity-universitys-summit-europe-amsterdam-november-19-20/ -> Such a cool opportunity, I only wish I could go... But instead I will probably be in school, since I can't fly out to Europe for the weekend (I'm not made of money!). I've asked the professor if he could go, maybe he could give me the inside-scoop, let me know what they talk about... But that probably won't happen. I found it interesting that this conference would exist -- and after the conference which other members of the class attended, I wondered to myself, "why couldn't I go to this? I'm young, isn't attending conferences what young folks like me do?" http://singularityhub.com/2014/11/02/which-new-technology-will-win-the-race-to-repair-and-replace-our-organs/ -> "Strange yet inevitable transhumanist age"... I find it odd that this should make it's way into here. Granted this is a Singularity website, yet, I expected a statement less... Definitive. Eh. The quote intrigued me. http://singularityhub.com/2014/11/04/the-internet-of-things-should-rattle-the-imagination/ -> Another... Inspiring video, from the same gentleman who did the "Singularity" article several weeks back that piqued my interest... Jason Silva. His videos sadly lack in annotations or citations (so from an STS perspective they really only amount to a lot of hot-air), yet they do spark the mind. http://singularityhub.com/2014/11/05/which-emerging-technology-will-most-redefine-what-it-means-to-be-human/ -> This article was posted more as a "call to arms" from the transhumanist community -- seeking input from persons (tech predictors, consultants, etc.) with regards to what "new tech" would influence the community of society the most (an opportunity I honestly expected Colin to have already jumped-on). I had been hoping to find an actual LIST here of what tech was CURENTLY at the top of the list, but this article was "pre-study." Meh.

Ok, now back to the actual articles from... Sunday.... That are ..... due last sunday.... 12:05pm -- 1:20pm, Memo 40 (looking-thru articles, as-per the page).

>>>> Oh. And a quick update [from yesterday]; my email (to Dr. Ramprouliou) was given to Dr. Bostrum, and he did not have time this week to talk. I need to follow-up to that to ask about the possibility of any future discussion, before trying to send my personal email to Dr. Bostrum himself.

So I found 30 articles from STHV, that makes 71 I need to review for tomorrow... Quite the long list. Not all of them are strictly relevant, of course, but interesting. I don't think I'll have time for all of them tonight, so I'm going to break for now (also my shoulder is spasming and preventing me from typing comfortably). I'll keep plugging-through this though.

__11/12/2014__ 9:00am -- 10:59am, Memo 40. Ok, we are in it for the long haul!!! 71 articles, let's go!!!

10:59am -- 11:17am, watching the live Rosetta landing footage from ESA in Germany. Go science!

11:20am -- 1:38pm, continue Mmeo40. [11:50am, finished the STHV articles in Memo40 on Slow Movement]

//__**STILL CONCERNED THAT MY RESEARCH HAS BEEN PUSHED-BACK THIS FAR, I WANT TO HAVE FINISHED THIS WEEKS AGO SO I COULD BEGIN DRAFTING. I STILL DON'T HAVE AN ARGUMENT, MUCH LESS A COHERENT ONE. OR EVEN A**__// **SKELETON.**

I'm also not terribly happy at how I had to conduct VERY un-robust searches... I would have liked to have spent more time searching MORE Databases under MORE "terms," rather than the very LIMITED number of Databases AND Terms. --><range type="comment" id="530720656_1"> Even searching the ones I've already done -- STHV, AR, GS, and EBSCO, under more than the SINGLE Terms I've already done, even if those returned Zero relevant results, would have been useful...</range id="530720656_1">

2:02pm -- 2:11pm, continue Memo40. [<range type="comment" id="530737046_1">Talking with Dan][2:11pm-3:53pm]</range id="530737046_1"> 4:08pm --5:59pm, continue work on Memo40 (in class). Sortof finished with the Memo 40 at this time... Still have not cited a "full" paper as a primary source -- because I have not found one, and those I have found are... Really more for background and breadth, NOT for the depth I wanted. Meh. -> We seem to have found about 15 articles to get in-depth, plus 10 more or so of quotes, lenses, and/or definitions...

-->> Still have the Memo 41 left to do...

__11/15/2014__ 10:08am -- 11:48am, "work" I had hoped to get Memo 41 done on Wednesday evening, but there was a JPL info-session that evening which restricted my ability to get that done. So today is the first chance I've had to sit down and do work... I'm, of course, finding it rather difficult to sit and work without proper motivation. So; today we need to work on Memo 41 of course, as well as finish-up memo40 (that is, look-through some of the articles we found of interest). Ergo we begin with Memo 40, and go from there? Or, should I begin with Memo 41, and just trying to find articles? I think this may be more productive; Let's begin-with Memo41. --> I am having some difficulty getting my thoughts down... Which is why the professor's suggestion of breaking my RQ into 10 smaller Questions will be useful! Those I can probably answer...

1:36pm -- 1:40pm, refine searches for articles for Memo41. 2:50pm -- 10:17pm, work on Mmeo 42 (Skeleton) and Memo 41 (still acquiring targets and refining my search). Well, that took much longer than I expected -- I've got a huge number of new articles to sift-through tomorrow, which may or may not happen in full. I may choose to constrain my searches to items containing the things I want in the Abstract and/or Title...

__11/17/2014__ Had quite an interesting talk last night with a few fellows, I was quite intrigued to find a gentleman whose reasons of "not using a smartphone" coincided so directly as a combination of the "tech hipster" and "tech addict" pushback movements described in Ms. Morrison's article in the Seattle Times... Yet his was also a bit unique, in that he specifically stated, "I choose to only use those technologies that positively benefit my life... After a time I came to find that my phone was ringing 25, 30 times a day [and I couldn't keep up]... Now I limit myself to three calls by a person each day, after which I block them... [Being without a phone] was actually a negative effect on my work, I found that without one I was being harmed [in the work industry][by a lack of opportunity]." So, yes... Quite intriguing. We spent a bit of time (2 hours?) talking about Project Arda, Bloc, and other Maker/DIY/OS things, including a dislike of Apple technologies...

Anyways. As I mentioned over the weekend, I'm finding my apathy really is kicking-in... I'm finding it difficult to keep working... Yet I must finish... I must finish the work.... The articles... The questions... -->> Especially the questions..... I need those to begin the Skeleton... I don't have enough Questions!

__11/19/2014__ 5:30pm --, thoughts... So. I still need more and better questions... I need questions before I can make a skeleton. While I have some small degree of "conceptual framework," "methodology," and "empirical basis" [nowhere near as much as I think I need], and Brandon gave me some great feedback on this... I still feel like I'm floating more than I want to be. I wanted... Weelllll, I actually really NEED... To have all my questions done by today, so i can make the Skeleton on Friday and have a Draft ready by Sunday, so i can get feedback and submit another Draft before next week so I can get feedback and submit the Final Draft by the Due Date...

From Memo42, looking at the qs I had so far; 4 and 7 may be useful in describing "about the people"... How they think.... - Useful for motivations? - What are their underlying assuptions, values.... //__**Peer-perspectives?**__// - What are the shared nodes between the views and groups -- leads into the concluding thoguhts, of shared spaces... ->>>> Stakeholder analysis.... how are situated....

__11/21/2014__ Meeting with CCP, 10:30 am -- 12:00 pm. Useful; I have a structure and a means to an end. Now I just need to focus on how to get there! And of course, getting the full articles and analysis I need to do this...

2:30pm -- 4:00pm, meeting and talking witht he professor. Got quite a few useful notes from this... All of which I hope wil be useful. Not sure if I will got o practice today or not... not when I have so much to do! And, it seems I may have an actual weekend in which to do all of this work.... I look forward to this, finally I can catchup on my Thesis... Or, at the very least, begin the Skeleton and work we discussed... I am uncertain if I shall be wrking in a MSWord doc, LaTeX, or some other type of document... Or if I shall just put all my considerations into a single Wiki page... We shall see. I took voice recordings of the discussion between Brandon and I and Gaines and I, which will hopefully prove useful. Sadly I must soon export this all onto some other form and remove documents from my phone, as I have once again begun to run out of space... I know not how to get more, aside from upgrading yet again to a larger item... Which is part of why I look forward to using something besides Apple technology, as I would dearly love to be able to...

Anyways. We must begin the Skeleton... to put meat onto the bones... We shall move this into a new Memo, Memo 43. 4:48pm -- 10:28pm, Memo 43 -- Skeleton and RRD of Thesis. -->> Made some good progress today, we have an outline to begin filling-in and adding meat to...

__11/22/2014__ 10:13am -- 11:52am, Memo 43 and RRD. We made some good progress yesterday, but there is still more meat that needs to be added.... Including sources and citations (as well as actual arguments!). Only 18 pages so far, but I'm sure we can do better... -->> Progress is slower today than I wanted -- mostly because I don't have the content to just copy-paste into here (had to make the Abstract by hand, as weell as the Intro, methodology, etc.). Most of this content will be freehand-generated.

//__**There is still a chance I could get some content in before 5:30 pm, however I am highly skeptical of**__ **this...**//

12:00pm -- 12:53pm, notes in my pocketbook. Trying to come up with a list of what I have and what I need -- and I really need "everything" new... 1:23pm -- 2:47pm, continue on Memo43... Need new sources and thoughts. Even if preliminary.

-->> Finally reached a draft4, nned to now get articles and citations... 4:16pm -- 7:42pm, getting citations and items... [Unfinsihed] -->> Did not actually finish this before becoming dispirited... I feel my basic Result to my research questions is the following;

"Does a discusion exist between the H+ and ST groupd with regards to communication technologies?" -->> No... The main element of the ST group is to isnpire "reflection," and by adding this in a loop to "slow down" technology and interactions. The H+ group merely seems to work in a quasi-Extropian fashion, to say that "tehcnology can be sueful, and for this we wish to continue to prmote technolgy to make us better than well" (to quote the H+ page). Yet nowhere within that discussion have I found direct work by either spkespersons of either group claiming a "for" or "against" specific technologies such as smartphones or the Internet.

"If no disagreement exists, why would both groups not disagree?" -->> Because neither group focuses on a specific technology -- not directly. Challenges of technology -- or counter-claims -- are made by individuals, who do NOT claim to speak "for the rest of the group" (except maybe Bostrum, on behalf of transhumanists and ethics). Yet even Bostrum's work is done in retalion to specific individuals' ideas and claims, such as Francis Fukuyama -- and NOT against the "slow technology" group. Granted, I still have not looked-into the two recommended H+ magazines to see if ANY community-views exist WRT communications technologies... -->> Furthermore, both groups appear to be, at the very least, "not against technology" -- ergo, it seems I will not find a discussion of "for vs against smartphones" by an H+ and ST members...

"If there is not a disagreement, where is it that both groups do not disagree?" -->> As I mentioned, both seem to be "pro technology," with an eye of "caution" WRT human-interaction and impact. Furthermore, both groups seem open to discussion about relevant technologies that may impact humans as a whole.

"What do the ST and H+ approaches to communication technologies tell us about the way they position 'humanity' and the Internt?" -->> From the ST side, and by the (Slow Technology Reflection, 2) "What are the characteristics of information and computing technology that initiate changes towards a more reflective environment? One partial answer to this question is that such technology is slow in nature." (2) Neither group seems to inherently discuss the technologies I want to be focusing on -- rather, they are emntioned off-hand, in passing, and not tackled head-on. THIS IS A NEGATIVE SPACE, a space for future consideration and discussion, that should be taken-up by both sides! -->> The H+ folks seem to think that "humanity" falls in-line with the Wiki definition of "human nature" -- or at least, the one discussion I coudl find of "humanity" stems from a paper by Bostrum, where his talk of humans fell in-line with that piece. There does seem to exist a notion -- explicitly stated -- that "human" is something more than physical, an idea shared by BOTH SIDES. However, the H+ group seems to discuss it -- in passing -- as a "purely metaphysical" sense, yet with the inherent ability (lens) of "overcoming obstacles." -->> The ST group -- not explicitly, except in the Haaretz article -- seems to claim that "human" involves a fundamental "reflection," a "physical" emphasis, rather than a digital one. This aspect is something that I have not yet seen tackled by nay of the H+ folks ... Rather, the H+ folks seem not to care about "physical versus digital."

__12/3/2014__ 3:40pm -- 4:22pm. Whelp it's been a while, and I can't sum all I've done (see the email sent to Brandon on 12/1/2014 for my full list of things done over Break), but I needed to add the list of articles and cool stuff that's been piling-up in my records here.

http://www.vox.com/2014/11/11/7175455/cyborg-ethics-moreno --> Rather interesting summary of the "human augmentation" future, a little bit of predicitons in there. His take (Moreno, ethicist at UPenn) on augmentation-ethics is rather interesting... I wish I could grasp better (e.g. more defined) what he means by "what it means to be human," but it is a GREAT overview of the arguments and ideas!!!

http://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/first-artificial-enzymes-created-synthetic-genetic-material --> This really does fascinate me, I posted about this on facebook at <>. In particular, this has me excited along the lines that the film "Avatar" (2009) touched-on---the idea that humanoids could be formed with superstrong limbs and ligaments. I desperately wish to see this taken further, and to see experimentation done to enhance the "inherent" structural ability of humans... Though I suspect the attainment of that zenith will take quite a few decades. Most likely, in the short term (and in-line with Moreno's take) this will be used to craft artificial cures, and maybe organs.

http://imgur.com/gallery/RH8jR --> Now this I wanted to make a note of, as I intend to one day buy such a device that lets me run faster, jump higher... I've had ambitions for the last few years to replace my legs with something "better than organic," as I don't want to be held back by what I have now...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhsaF7N8iv0&app=desktop --> Quite an interesting and useful video. It is good to see more being developped in the exoskeleton industry... I may apply to these folks!

<range type="comment" id="532244094_1">http://singularityhub.com/2014/11/18/is-it-necessary-that-technologies-are-evenly-distributed-for-humankinds-progress/ --></range id="532244094_1"> More of a thinking piece than an actual "empirical" article, sadly. Offers a few cases as "thinkers", but does not conclude. For my part, I see the case as compelling -- high-end, secretive R&D to develop things "beyond their time" is more attractive to me than producing a product with little "quantum leap" to it.

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20141119-japanese-artist-collaboration-xsense-develop-gorgeous-and-artistic-3d-printed-artificial-limbs.html --> Quite the amazing showcase of anime and sci-fi creativity in prosthetic design. I do applaud the makers of such pieces for attempting to "give pride back to the disabled," as the article puts it.

http://singularityhub.com/2014/11/25/summit-europe-chip-implants-easy-as-piercings/ --> Not exactly revolutionary, I've put an article in here before about rice-sized RFID chips. But it's cool to see them talked-about at a conference and implanted on-stage.

__12/8/2014__ 10:25am --12:15pm, Thesis Presentation drafting (prep for the UG Sympoium Thursday?) Much as I had expected, I am not getting-to the slides until just now. And already I feel so exhaisted after the last few days... But I must get this done regardless.

More notes for this will be in a Memo, < http://figuringoutmethods.wikispaces.com/Thesis+Presentation+Outline+and+Notes%2C+December+8>. --> I have a structure here, and just need to add my findings and sources and Questions and Abstract in from my Paper.

1:00pm -- 2:24pm, try to finish my Presentation.... yay for last-minute... Some further sources to look-into for Lit Review; Noncarbon life; http://cyborganthropology.com/Stefan_Helmreich http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520208001 http://web.mit.edu/anthropology/pdf/articles/helmreich/helmreich_wetwaresreview1.pdf

Bioethics literature;

Physical proximity; Derrida's "Limited Inc." [writing versus speech]

Industrial life; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Castells

Discourse community; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_community http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratization_of_technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_shop http://sth.sagepub.com/content/18/3/341.abstract http://www.loka.org/idt/intro.htm http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/02spp.html

__12/9/2014__ 2:51 pm -- 5:31pm, notes. I already sent my feedback and further-thoughts to folks this morning. So I'm looking to finalize my presentation for Thursday, to which I think Brandon is correct -- I could use some more information on the actual "genesis" of Slow technology. The current movement today is very "new," newer than the Slow Movement, but as he claims may have its roots in Luddism in Britain and "critical STS"...

I also am looking to get this damn Thesis done -- Brandon suggested Thursday or Friday, I'm thinking that may not be enough time..

7:08pm -- 9:54pm, continue with RD2. Hoping to finish my sorting of Sources -- the Appendices -- tonight, so that tomorrow morning I can finish the Terms, then do the Liter Review. Which may leave Thursday or Friday for typing the final bits for the Bodies.

__12/10/2014__ 12:49pm --2:51pm, continue with the Edits -- hoping to finish that Intro piece, before addressing the rest of Brandon's old Feedback Comments. Then... I should be ready go add-in the Methodology, Lit Review, etc. Probably in that order.

5:44pm -- 6:45pm, try to get the Lit Review Discussion together.

9:13pm -- 9:43pm, can't finish the full Lit Review it looks-like, so I'll at least identify sources and what to use them for, out of what I already have...

__12/13/2014__ 11:10am -- 3:15pm, finish getting those articles from our records together... After which we will do the lit review fro 2 hours, then move-on to the Body.... I do think we can finish this this weekend!!!! -->> Not quite done, but with some more effort we can finish the Lit Review and Methodology tonight!!!

6:20pm -- 11:00pm, continue proing throught he 3 articles I have left in STHV... LETS FINISH THIS!!!!!!! FIRST THE LIT REVIEW, THEN ZE VORLD!!!

__12/14/2014__ 11:08am -- 12:11pm, finish the Lit Review, then do the Bodies... [12:11pm, lit review complete, off to lunch now to think before starting the Bodies].

1:46pm -- 4:51pm, continue on Body1. (Mostly done).

__12/15/2014__ 12:05pm -- 1:59pm, FINISH IT!!!! In all serioussness I wonder how realistic that is -- given how MUCH there is left to do. I'm trying to do what I can though.

--> Need a break to eat lunch, I will be back though!

2:00PM -- 1:32AM, draft 1 is complete!!!!!!!