Tuesday
Nov242009
Plug memory into your vidphone - Ep. 8
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 6:04PM We are well chuffed, as the Brits say, to have Paul and Storm of Paul and Storm join us to give their short term predictions which involve the ability to store your memories on thumb drives and the final arrival of those video phones we all want.
Reader Comments (8)
Loved the episode guys (although it seems there is no hope at returning to the old format...sigh...).
About the talk concerning memory erasure, I am taking a cognitive neuroscience class at the University of Lethbridge and we recently learned about amnesia and memory loss. We require TONS more research before being even close to erasing specific memories. From what I remember (and keep in mind I'm only an undergraduate so I'm not a genius), the area of the brain that serves as an index of memory is the hippocampus, which will convert short-term memory into long-term memory while you sleep. If you were to try to wipe a specific memory of a day via trauma, electroshock therapy, etc, you would most likely give someone either retrograde amnesia (inability to recall already formed memories) or anterograde amnesia (inability to form new memories).
Memories are normally stored in several different parts of the brain, so you would have to hunt down specific areas to erase memories. For example, you want to erase the memory of Tom soiling himself in front of an entire crowd on teen vampire lovers on the opening night of New Moon. You would have to find specific neurons that "saw" the look of the girls' faces, the neurons that "heard" the laughter, the neurons that "felt" the warmth wash over him, etc etc etc. Then you would have to find the neurons in the hippocampus that tie all these together. After all of that, there's no guarantee that those same neurons dispersed throughout your brain are not also tied to dozens of other memories. Its a risky business, and I think the complexities of memory and learning are severely underestimated by most people.
Having said that, the idea of erasing (or even better, inserting) the memory of Tom's embarrassing bladder tale is fun to consider.
LOVE. THE. SHOW.
I just started listening to this episode and from the length of it I can already tell you are still using the new format. Sigh, oh well I guess we the fans can just keep telling you we don't like the new format and want the old one back. Pretty please!!!
Tom was good to point out that Scott's suggestion of human evolution to "lizard skin" would require that the lizard skin confer a survival or reproductive advantage. I believe in human evolution and I DO NOT think that the human species will ever evolve "lizard skin" in the way Scott implied.
The human evolution argument goes the other way: The more we're able to compensate for climate conditions with clothing and other technology, the LESS we'll need body hair or feathers or scales etc.
I think there was a little movie confusion on the show. "Running Man" doesn't feature a uniformly dressed populace; you were probably thinking about "Logan's Run" there?
By the way, I'm sure you guys would like the original "Running Man" novel by Stephen King. The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie has convicts and killers played by body builders and wrestling stars, fancy weapons, show host, sponsors, etc. but the original story has ordinary, down-on-their-luck people signing up voluntarily to be hunted, but they hide in society itself (not a closed-off game area) and citizens are rewarded for informing on them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Man (Lots of spoilers)
Great show!
As far as the video phone goes, I think it's more likely that we will see avatars rather than actual people when we place calls. So instead of spraying on your tux or Hef robe you will load up either a cartoon version of yourself or one based on photographic scans of your head and this real-time version of you will show up in their viewer.
And best of all this tech is already here!!
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/10/sony-shows-off-ps3-facial-recognition-tech/
And you never have to be afraid of answering the videophone straight out of the shower again.
Ah, franck3d, thanks for reminding me: Spray-on clothes for webcam is the long way around. Virtual overlay effects (such as clothes) already exist. To wit, a happy amateur and her Logitech Quickcam Orbit MP, video from March 2006, lots of head-tracking video effects http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o32oHGTOzTE
Great episode. I really enjoy the concept of this show; partly just because it's not like every other tech/entertainment podcast I listen/watch, but also because it's an excellent concept and format.
Speaking of format, I really like the refined format of splitting up the conversation and releasing more often. It's heartbreaking to not have everything at once, but it's better that you can take more time with each segment. It's also great that you stay in our minds by releasing regularly, we can't drift away or forget about it.
Thanks for the great content. Great guests and segments so far!
Video phones or any video for that matter, I will Chroma Key Green or Blue jumpsuit and let you guys pick what you want me to wear to your groups or events. If you require Black Tie...I will be in black tie. I think if my local wall mart does want t o see "The People of Wal mart" looking so cruddy then Wall Mart can Chroma Key whatever they want to have us wear. Back to the Video Phone concept. If we did the Chroma Key jumpsuits and there were say 6 buttons across the bottom of the phone...would we get into a fit over what we wore while on the phone? I call Tom and want to see him in his chicken suit but Tom wants his smoking jacket. I hit the CS button and Tom hits his SJ button. This could lead to mayhem. The other thing to think of is I a really do wear a blue jumpsuit, I must have some way of documenting the close people put me in. Not so much for when the old ladies put me in my boxer shorts but more for when the hot chicks dress me in a Male thong.... Now do you see why we must develop my concept?
Then just reverse the roles and what would we dress the women we see out and about wearing Blue or Green jumpsuits? What would you do to dress or undress them?
I think this would be cool! A real life Second Life. We should try it!!! I'm free this weekend. As long as Eileen cooks for me I can spend the entire weekend prototyping with you Tom and Roger. The Three Amegos !