Good news, everyone! Update: Some news you WILL NOT believe.

[DerGolgo]

I mean it!

Even these days.
When the news is that the Brits seem to have learned nothing, where authors need fact checkers to make sure they don't make mistakes about their own work.

When not only do anti-vaccine delusions have measles and things like that making a comeback but, as it turns out, sharing every detail of one's life and every fart of an opinion with uncounted millions, and reacting to what those share, in an unending vicious circle, will cause old-fashioned Mass Hysteria to arise once more. Who'd have thought?
Well, me for one, but I'm just one guy with no qualifications, a limited amount of anecdotal data and much conjecture, so that doesn't really count.

Even those things we as humans are proud of and blasé about, that we had to invent ourselves because nature wouldn't turn out to have come with. http://io9.com/this-insect-evolved-gear ... 1304357105. Gears. The natural nuclear reactor was bad enough, this is almost too much.

If one was of the depressive persuasion, news like this might well make the rope-part of bungee look entirely unappealing while, at the same time, making the jumping part appear ever more inviting.

But there's good news! Stuff that may make you want to live! That may give you genuine hope! And since I'm stuck at home and even old episodes of A bit of Fry and Laurie don't occupy my large, disturbing (or is it disturb-ed?) head quite enough, I went on a stroll through some news-ish websites. I do this a bit rarely these days. Even if the news doesn't depress me, it will leave me apathetic a bit too often. And was I surprised at the things I found. Being an incorrigible and irredeemable narcissist (a diagnosis based on anecdotal evidence and unqualified conjecture, once more), I felt the need to share, as I would.

Good news No. 1:

So, first of ... someone seems to have come up with a way to make biometric security measures actually safe!
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/09/12 ... ot-a-thief

The system samples your brain waves, stores them--and actually shuts down the car if the driver's EEG signals don't match what's on file.

Of course, the first thing that manufacturers will require before using this is for it to work without attaching sensors to your head, or just holding a probe to your forehead, and so you don't even have to hold your head in the right place. So it'll be as convenient as keyless entry. And once they figure that out, they can use it on any door, in any supermarket, what have you. They will use this to not just monitor your facial expressions and gait and whatnot, but pretty intimate reactions to stimuli like advertising and suchlike. Which will give us all a valid excuse to wear a tinfoil hat. Which, in itself, would be a bit silly. But someone will market regular looking hats with tinfoil or other shielding. People will wear more hats again, which I, for one, think is rather good news. If only because it would provide you something to tip or even take off when expressing respect and admiration. I don't like biometric security bollocks, but I like hats, even though I'm too lazy to wear one. Given the appropriate stimuli, such as this, I might be able to overcome this impediment to my personal hattery.

Good news No. 2:

Remember The 5th Element? One of the craziest, awesommest space-operas in ever? Gary Oldman in his ultimate role? Well, the genius who made it (and I feel no reluctance in describing him as such), Luc Besson ... he'd rather like to make another one!
http://io9.com/luc-besson-still-wants-t ... 1304352611
Now I, for one, am usually wary of the dread sequel. Not just not only, but especially, if those behind it declare that SFX technology wasn't quite there yet when they made the last one. On the other hand ... it wasn't there yet for The 5th Element???
But be that as it may. The 5th Element wasn't Hollywood, and Luc Besson really isn't Hollywood. And the man has this to say:

I don't know if it would be directly connected [to The Fifth Element] but it would be the same area and the same genre. So for me it would be connected even if the stories had nothing to do with each other.

Perhaps an entirely new and unrelated story, just "the same genre" and pimping effects with which to baffle, bedazzle and bewilder us? From this guy? Oh, this could absolutely be ...

Good news No. 3:

What's more, pretty soon, we may all get laid. All the time. The clothing industry will first experience a boom, as everyone is tearing apart their shirts and pants and needs to replace them, and then a massive slump, as people just stop wasting time with dressing up in the morning.
Here it is in dumb: http://www.gizmag.com/hiv-aids-vaccine-ohsu/29042/
Here it is in smart: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/va ... 12519.html
The long and short of it:

A very promising vaccine candidate for HIV/AIDS has shown the ability to completely clear the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a very aggressive form of HIV that leads to AIDS in monkeys.

There used to be a time when people would announce that "it was just around the corner". Back in the 80s or thereabouts. And there is a very good chance nothing at all may come of this, except a lot of new infections because people hear of this and believe it's already there. But on the other hand, here is Nature announcing that it worked in monkeys. They tend to be a reliable source for things scientific. Both monkeys and Nature. And apart from that guy who was cured with a bone-marrow transplant, I for one am not aware of any other such success stories. Imagine that. The sexy 70s making a return. Of course, such an overly expressive vector for diseases will, probably, eventually accommodate some other horrible thing. But apart from all that ... just being able to help those millions afflicted by it, to stop this shite in it's tracks finally, that would be ... I have no adjective. But I have an idea. SIV and AIDS are similar. But are they similar enough? Are there still variants of one that cross the species? Even if so, is it likely to occur often enough to maintain infections in a part of the world population? If there aren't and it isn't... the last disease that was exclusively human-to-human was smallpox, wasn't it? And look what we did to that! Who knows, should this really work and become available for distribution, and with a bit of a massive effort, we might see a second disease entirely eradicated. Chances are, honestly, not that huge that either will come about, the vaccine/cure or the eradication, but still, with such results reported in such respectable sources, there's some reason for a little hope.
Or a little despair, actually. Re-programmed HIV viruses have been used to cure terminal, metastasized leukemia by setting the immune system on the cancer cells. Getting cancer at some point is pretty likely, a vaccine preventing a cure could be tricky ...

Good news No. 4:

But while the above is giving me a little hope in general, this one is giving me a little more hope, specifically.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/09 ... iving-mice

Researchers have discovered a surprisingly effective way to “reprogram” mature mouse cells into an embryolike state, able to become any of the body’s cell types.

Why is that important? Imagine some bit in your body is missing or malfunctioning. If they can make the cells in the area around it turn back into embryonic stem cells ... perhaps with some appropriate convincing what to become ... you might just grow a new one! Kidney buggered? Have two!
And think a little further. What if the cells are all there, but they are boring, lazy scar tissue, just occupying space. Not the working kind of cells that would let that bit of the body do it's job. Imagine you could turn those around to become whatever is needed in that place. What could you do with that? Well, you could, for instance ... perhaps, with a bit of luck, in a decade or two ... repair my motherfucking brain damage! I've got scar tissue where I should have neurons, and there's bugger all that can currently be done about it. Heck, some of the neurons I still do have in the affected areas wired up in the wrong order when some separated connections did manage to grow back again. And I'm not alone with such problems. Not just head trauma and stroke victims might benefit from this. They've been talking about using stem cells to fix broken optic nerves, even spinal cords. If this is, as the article claims, indeed not just a way to create stem cells in-situ, but a better way than the old petri dish, this could eventually help many, many, many people with perhaps even worse problems than myself.

If all of that cannot give you some happy and you still have a yearning for the cool, refreshing taste of shotgun, listen to Murray Gell-Mann. Dude's got a Nobel, so if he says there's a reason to not kill yourself, one which he has himself researched even (as he explains), he's probably worth listening to:


Now, after all these references to suicide, let me repeat:
Don't kill yourself. Good stuff is going on, things are looking up in many areas. Yes, they might get worse, too. But, as Mr. Gell-Mann explains, if you do the one thing to soon, you wouldn't find out whether it didn't turn out good, after all.
Also, the sun is shining, pretty much all of A bit of Fry and Laurie is on youtube, if you don't like the sun or are on the dark half of the globe. Or you can just laugh at my narcissistic drivel. Cheer up!

[DerGolgo]

Oooh, there's even weirder stuff going on:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 091013.php

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 10, 2013 — By studying how memories are made, UC Irvine neurobiologists created new, specific memories by direct manipulation of the brain, which could prove key to understanding and potentially resolving learning and memory disorders.

Yes, yes, to treat learning disorders. Of course. Nothing sinister to see here, move along.
Oh, by the way, remember how you decided to serve in the army? Accepted an 88% APR for your credit card? How you realized you really, really want to become an informant and it was actually you who approached the secret police?
Sinister barely describes what such technology could be used for. Sure, we probably are decades away from just punching up what we want someone to remember on the computer and then letting people's brain construct them from simple instructions (don't get too detailed, let them do the work, just like in advertising).
But I think this is a teensie-weensie little bit scary. Even if all they can do is program the brain of a rat now ... in twenty, thirty years? With the exponentially accelerating power of computers, evolutionary algorithms and all that, too, brain-scanning-technologies of all sorts getting ever more precise and accurate along the way ... shudder.

ON THE OTHER HAND.
Imagine high school in twenty or thirty years.
"Now, we covered all of vector calculus last month, this month, we'll have some fun with matrices. Now, please don't complain, this is sixth grade. How are you going to manage number theory next year if you don't know your matrices? We've got all of maths to cover before we can let you graduate, don't we! Besides, I didn't hear anyone complain when we covered all the common dialects of Chinese, you managed that in six weeks, didn't you?!"
Imagine. If not just memory, but functional memory, where we separately store how to do something, could just be uploaded. If all the time in class and with homework could be spent practicing, practicing something you already have the theory for down perfectly. If you could focus on learning by doing it, because learning about it is suddenly just a measure of sitting in the download machine for an hour or whatever.
The really intelligent kids who still manage to fuck up in school, they could suddenly excel. Kids who have problems understanding complex ideas, or even simpler ones, could move past a lot of barriers, so they and their teachers could focus on helping them figure out whichever specifics their brain doesn't much like. Heck, adult education would take on a whole new meaning.

Imagine you've gotta go to a strange and foreign land for work like, I dunno, India. You just pick up a portable training thing at the duty free and, by the time you step off of the plane, you speak fluent Hindi. Heck, imagine you want to watch a Japanese movie and are sick and tired of the subs, or you try to find out something on the internet and all the relevant sites are in Filipino. What's the problem? The market for dubbing movies would implode.
Imagine you've tried to impress a woman with tales of your prowess as a pianist, but you've never touched a piano in your live and now have all of 24 hours to become proficient. Or you'd like to impress her with great proficiency in, ahem, other skills no one ever let you try out on them ...
True, those with a natural talent or aptitude, or just an above-average ability to acquire new skills, they would loose their edge. But everybody else might find doors opened to them previously closed, if only by the lack of time or inclination to study.

Yes, it's another form of instant gratification. But how many people never learn the piano because they give up, not getting good enough, quickly enough? How many people with the urge to express themselves through music didn't, because of the inability/lack of time or inclination to learn an instrument, could suddenly do it when clever computer software let them compose and mix to their heart's delight? How many outstanding paintings never got painted, how many sculptures never got sculpted, because the artist just never learned the craft, for whatever reason? How many friendships just never happened because of a language barrier?

Yes, learning, failing, working hard, succeeding only slowly and through hard graft, those are all valuable and gratifying experiences that build character. But so were hunting, sewing your own clothes, churning your own butter, raising your own crops. Heck, spending hours and hours in a library, digging through the catalog and obscure reference books and then, finally, finding the one small bit of information you were looking for ... I've done that, actually felt great coming out victorious. But you know? Spending thirty minutes on the web to find not just the detail I'm looking for, but some alternatives, perhaps even directly ending up where that detail was supposed to take me, but without the intermediate step ... all from the comfort of my own chair, with a cup of joe and a smoke at hand, wearing pants only because there are things to be afraid off, rather than because society demands it ... I prefer the latter, honestly.

Yes, if such instant and easy learning was possible, even if it's more complicated, like watching a video while listening to hypnotic sounds or whatever, it would quickly remove many important experiences from our society. Perhaps create an even greater divide to countries, or just sectors of society, where people lack access to such technology.
Or it might close such divides. When a Kenyan kid, who would never be able to even see a university up close, can become a fully trained chemical engineer by staring at his phone for a few days. When someone who can't find a job in what they're qualified for can just pick up a new qualification in a matter of days, they'd only have to overcome their lack in on-the-job experience when going for the job interview.
Having not one but two or three different careers will, all of a sudden, become much less daunting. Worrying about job security would, suddenly, become much less of a governing factor in people's lives, and in the interactions with their boss. You won't give me a raise? Fine, who cares, I can pick up a new trade like that, someone's gonna hire me. See ya!

Life and society and all that is change, constant and all the time, there never were "the good old days" when humankind was somehow doing it right. There is no "doing it right". There is right for the time and place, if that.
We live in a ridiculously accelerating society. Such tricks might make life in that society a heck of a lot worse. Or a heck of a lot better.
What would life be like if everyone had the knowledge and basic skills for not just one field, but for two or three or four?
What of the guy in HR, who decides about your continued employment, had more than just an amateur's acquaintance with kabuki and was certified as a special-needs elocution instructor?
If your dentist was also skilled as a forensic-lab-technician and a semi-professional violinist?
If your landscape gardener also knew the ins and outs of mortgages, was trained as a physiotherapist and spoke seven different languages?
If the judge at your trial was also a practicing saddler, with a sideline as a trained zoologist?
Just consider all the crap that happens because people don't understand the basics of how their computer or the internet work. All the yelling at customer support, all the free tech-support from friends or family that is suddenly superfluous.
What if all the anti-vaccine idiots and climate-change "skeptics" could actually just acquire the intellectual skills to follow up the relevant research themselves? What could happen to the industrialized nation's lifestyle-diseases if the skills for being a nutritionist/cook were something you could pick up in a matter of weeks?
What if politicians could actually, and quickly, get a good understanding of the stuff they have to make decisions about? If they no longer had to rely on industrial lobbyists or special-interest-group reps to tell them what's what, as they so often do today?

Life is short. Choosing what to learn is a critical, important part of it. But many people cannot make the choice, for they are spoiled for choice, many somehow ended up without any affinity or desire to learn, or many choose wrong and don't notice in time to turn around. And, let's face it, even for those who have the ability and inclination and make the right choices ... there's just too much to learn for one person in one lifetime. But if it was a simple, trivial thing to learn the nitty gritty of things, the stuff that's no fun to learn for most, the renaissance person may well make a comeback. Someone who's a doctor, up to date with all the current medical stuff, but who's also a fully qualified and up-to-date pharmacologist. Or, heck, not just qualified for one field of medicine, but for a dozen. Useful, no?

As much as I enjoy fantasizing about the outstanding things such technology might make possible, half a century from now, with zero quantifiable probability, the genuine threats such technology poses scare the dickens out of me. Oh, gee, student X got some silly ideas from his parents, like demanding accountability from his elected representatives, we must fix that in a hurry, all of that.
But the possible effects, many of which at least potentially positive, boggle, baffle, bamboozle, bewilder and bowl-over the mind.
This won't help us with our global wisdom shortage. But mass producing knowledge, that could open quite a few doors for all.

Ah, well, back to reality. This has the whiff of science-by-press-release, and all they really did was train a rat to react to a certain tone. So let's wait a few decades before becoming scared or euphoric or both. Like I said, you won't believe it. I know I'm rather skeptical that anything more than this one press release will ever come of it. I'm not even sure I want to believe it. But I'm also not sure I don't want to believe it ...

[Pintgudge]

MULTI-PASS!!!!!!



Multi- Pass!!

Yes,dear, it's a multi-pass.



MULLTIII- PASSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[roadmissile]

/RM

[Bigshankhank]

Oooh, there's even weirder stuff going on:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 091013.php

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 10, 2013 — By studying how memories are made, UC Irvine neurobiologists created new, specific memories by direct manipulation of the brain, which could prove key to understanding and potentially resolving learning and memory disorders.

...

They are studying how memories are made? Isn't that what made the Nexus 6 replicants so special?