I'm suspending the blog indefinitely

I'm suspending the blog indefinitely. Just no time. Sorry to everyone.

Keep Going

Preface

Wow. It has been two years since my last blog post here. I'd normally make some excuses about how some negative event(s) in my life has prevented me from working on this, but it's actually a negative event that's motivated me to return here for some more cyberpunk blogging. On the grand scheme of things, it's a minor event (nobody died, no one was injured, no one became ill) so I'll leave the details out. This blog is so far removed from what happened, it's going to serve as a little escapism therapy for me (lucky you!).

Moving On

As you may know, my goal with this blog is to cover as many topics as I could conjure up regarding the increased cyberization of every aspect of our lives - or should I say ourselves - in a logical order, while citing historic and modern examples. There have no doubt been many changes since my last post in the realm of artificial intelligence, robotics, prosthetics, cybernetics, and personal computing &communication, so expect to feel a sort of gap between the tone of prior posts and those from here on out.

So, if you're reading this, check back in a few hours, or maybe a day. As soon as this post goes up, I'm going to finish up the next one, continuing in the same order I had established prior to this.

In the mean time, I'm going to leave you with some things to check out to maybe, kind of, fill the gap that I had left two years ago.

I see Dots with Halos...

On a comfortable, and pleasantly clear, summer night, I found myself waiting for some one, alone, in my car. So I decided to recline my seat, open the sun-roof, and just look at the stars for a bit. The sky was pretty clear, but as I was on the KSU campus, there was a lot of light pollution.

I was, however, able to see a few stars. Only... They didn't look like stars. At least, not like I remember seeing stars. Instead of stars, what I saw were these little dots. Perfect, round, little dots. And each dot was surrounded by a little halo. And the space between the halo and the dot was filled with a haze of some sort.

No, these did not resemble stars at all.

Man Machine Interface

Obviously, when starting out the topic of what common cybernetic additions are/will be and what they can/will be able to do, I should start with prosthetics's, since they are probably what most people are the most familiar with. These functions aren't really what I want to focus on, but they are worth mentioning. Briefly. But don't get me wrong, I think restoring a once lost bodily function is great, but it's not the focus of this blog.

So here we go. Right now, as mentioned in previous posts, we are scratching the surface of technology to restore lost body parts, mostly limbs and organs, and restoring a couple of human senses, sight and sound. These will come back into discussion, but not as strictly medical devices. More like, upgrades, for your body.

So we already know that our limbs can be replaced with robotic ones. So can some organs. Obviously, if we had a fully cybernetic body, we wouldn't need organs. And if all, or most, of our skeleton were replaced with a metallic chassis, and our muscles replaced with powerful servos or hydraulics or pneumatics, then it would be possible to have our robotic limbs capable of exerting much more strength then we could as normal humans. Cool.

L.O.V.E.T.R.O.N.S
by ~patrick2006

Where we currently Stand

Logic would dictate that I start the discussion of how individuals can control their cybernetic additions starting with the technologies that are of the lowest tech. (i.e. voice command, buttons, muscle control) However, these relatively low tech solutions aren't in the news as much as their high-tech counterparts. The higher tech, or at least, more far fetched technique of controlling things with your mind, is more of a hot topic right now.

Definition of a cyborg

If you are one of those readers who are asking themselves "What is a cyborg?", you're not alone. Wikipedia has a pretty decent explanation. Wikipedia:Cyborg. But I don't expect everyone to read that article. So, for the sake of brevity, and to clarify the definition of the word "cyborg" as it pertains to this blog, I'm going to give you the quick and dirty answer. A cyborg is part man, part machine. There's a butt load of references in popular culture that, even if you aren't familiar with the term cyborg, have probably seen, or at least heard of.

• The Terminator
• Robo-Cop
• i, Robot
• Ghost in The Shell
• The Matrix
• Cyborg (duh!)
• Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in Star Wars.

The list goes on!

Now you know what a cyborg is. The second thing you need to know is that: Cyborgs are real and are living amongst us. There are people who have been cyberized to varying degrees. We'll discuss them in more detail later. Here are some pictures:


Each of these individuals have one or more electromechanical devices that communicate with their brains via connections to the nervous system.

In practice, this allows them to do some very practical things. In theory, it allows all of us to do some very fantastic things.

Restoring sight to the blind, sound to the deaf, and lost limbs to amputees, is nothing short of miraculous, but we're only scratching the surface at this point.

In my next posts, I'll explore the different ways that these technologies can be utilized to augment humanity. After I have covered those bases, I'll get into the discussion of the ethical and philosophical issues of an augmented humanity.

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CyberPunk Dawn

CyberPunk Dawn is a collection of true stories about the line between man and machine blurring.

CyberPunk Dawn will include stories on emerging technologies and existing technologies that will one day influence our daily life has human beings, and technologies that could potentially be doing that now.

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