hy(hytechbrid)brid

    You do know of course that the human eye's effective resolution is over 12 megapixels, but our ability to discern colour is pretty close to 32-bit (14-16 million distinct colours). And we have a bias towards shades of green, which is why image intensifier googles are green-shaded, and why digital camera chips using the Bayer pattern are arranged with 50% green sensors and 25% each of red and blue. We are self-powered, mobile, even though we require constant refuelling and exhaust management. Our cells have built-in obsolescence, it's call telomerase, which, if it didn't exist would certainly have been invented by the time the pharmas crack our code and own it which should be any day now. We're running a standard operating system based on a neural net, not an expert system, which explains why, instead of hitting the ground running, we spend the first third of our lives acquiring knowledge and the rest of it deferring to authority. We come in basically two models with different colours and you takes your chances on the CPU batch. Oh and we give off heat in the dark, humming to each other or to ourselves in our airconditioned rooms, wondering what to display, what the rest on the network are doing and whether, if we could get a connection going, whether we'd be at all compatible.

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    From HM:

    Hytechbrid

    Kevin Warwick, cybernetics professor at the University of Reading, claims that within a decade people will have wireless networks in their heads. Think of the marvellous applications in store. We could switch channels on the tube without looking for the remote. We could order our robots to fix the faucet and take out the trash. We could write anything, anywhere. We'd never miss any email again. We'd have all the facts we want at our fingertips, or the tip of our tongues, or wherever it is these facts reside - oh yes, the Internet. We'd be able to speak Swahili just by loading the relevant language pack. Our online dating agencies could travel with us, pointing out whether that cute chick on the corner is available, or a prostitute. We could take 12-megapixel pictures in the blink of an eye. Our bosses will be able to wake us at 3am if it was really, really urgent. S&P corporations will advertise directly into our brains. Pyramid schemes also. We'd no longer be confused by the two meanings of "virus".


26 September 2003   17:29 hours
sonnet for a lover in orbit { } parable of sunset