Steve Jobs

Memories: Four years old. Going next door to play Boulderdash, Ultima, and the Black Cauldron game on the neighbor family’s Apple IIc. Later learning math and planning, playing Number Munchers and Oregon Trail respectively on the same machines at school. Ten years old. Staying up until 5am to play Civilization with my dad on my family’s first computer, a Macintosh Performa 400. Writing my first short stories and complete dramatic work on the same computer. Twenty years old. Using a giant ProTools suite to mix the sound of my very first student film. I was inventing robot noises. Twenty-three years old. Editing sketch comedy bits with my dearest friends in the world on an iMac in Los Angeles. Twenty-six years old. Buying a Macbook to tour blog with The Airborne Toxic Event, and later The Henry Clay People. Twenty-seven years old. Being drunk and glorious, text and Twittering on the iPhone. Using that same device every day to call my girlfriend of nearly three years, the one I love.

Reflections: Individuals are real and contribute in different amounts to the super organism of earth. Steve Jobs was one of earth’s biggest living contributors in terms of influence. His contributions are meaningless without the users, the superorganism, though. I don’t know how many hungry people he fed or weak people he protected. Lionizing individuals is a failure of the mind. But on a planet driven by technological advancement, adaptation, progress, and innovation, it is hard to see where we will make-up for the loss of cognitive resource. It could take a generation.

CYBERPUNKARIFIC: Computer interface brain implants by 2020?

No surprise here, but Intel is fast at work developing wireless computer chip implants that will allow us to interface with computers via thought. We’re already decoding brain signals.

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CYBERPUNKARIFIC: Robotic Nightmare Fuel

“The machine has no feelings, it feels no fear and no hope … it operates according to the pure logic of probability. For this reason I assert that the robot perceives more accurately than man.” ~Max Frisch

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CYBERPUNKARIFIC: Biomass (read: shit) eating robots!

It starts with sewage, then flies. We’ll employ them in our sewers. They’ll gain a penchant for rats, or the occasional cat. Next thing you know, your childrens’ piercing cries will rattle your brain as their bones are splintered by the razor fangs of a goddamned toaster.

It’s a matter of time.

CYBERPUNKARIFIC: Eye Telescope

CBC News brings us updates on an implantable eye telescope.

The way we talk about the internet today is what we’ll talk about cybernetic implants by the end of this next decade. Make no mistake, we will be merging with our machines. Myself, I can’t wait for BlueTooth auchular implants. I never want to wear headphones again.

Cyberpunk: Robot Arms

We here at Classical Geek Theatre willing accept the possibility that the robot takeover of Earth may just be inexorable! One of the ways the machines will fool the sapiens is by subtly working their way into our homes and becoming a part of our daily lives.

At any rate, for better or for worse, people have robot arms now. This is amazing stuff and I’m not so sure the average earthling realizes this is possible. Today’s Iraq war veterans will start being fitted with these soon. I suspect in about five years we will have all seen them on the street first-hand. (Pun intended, though not recommended!)

Cyberpunk sci-fi is coming true.