There goes the neighborhood

You may have noticed that the site seems to be falling apart... Or maybe you didn't. I am in the middle of switching over to my new system, and you may see some broken links and out-of-layout glitches.

I had time tonight to listen to some NPR. There was a great show about Wind Resistance in Nantucket Sound. The debate is about a wind farm being build six-miles off the shore in Massachusetts. It is something you would expect if they were trying to build an oil rig, but how can people be against helping the environment and reducing our dependance on oil?

On one hand, I agree with the group opposing the project. It will not be nice to see huge windmills when looking out across the ocean, and at night the lights that will have to be on them will probably be an eyesore. But....

As sad I feel that what is undoubtedly a beautiful coastline (I barely remember being there) will be tarnished by development off-shore as well as on-shore, I think it's just too bad that no one has the luxury to dispute based on aesthetics anymore... It would appear that that area is pretty much screwed due to global warming and rising sea levels, and dying wildlife as it is... if they really care about the environment, is there really much choice? How can they (pr anyone) say "I care... as long as caring doesn't effect my lifestyle or property value"?

One other thing that this report made me think about is just how great the web really is... It is a topic I have mixed views on, since a lot of my clients at work really don't add any value to the web as a whole, but when I listened to this program, I was able to check out the links to sites regarding the development project, the opposition, greenpeace (who is in favor of the wind farm by the way), and just wind farms in general. I shudder to think how long it would have taken me to learn what I learned in less than an hour if, like less than 10 years ago, I had to go to the library and research it a limited collection of old books.

This also gives me hope if I were to go to grad-school to be a modern librarian. With all the data at our finger-tips now that never was there before, who knows how to keep it straight... how can we ever make it easy to access? It is easy to say the web does that... but even so, who knows the best way to structure data on the web? What about information in a companies private intra-net? I have a friend whose company sells only intra-net systems, and most of what we do at my own company, though on a much smaller scale, are primarily in-company data/information solutions.

It can only get more complicated too. I am sure that before I die we will all have wireless connections to the internet implanted in our brains. With this, besides being able to download entire texts to our personal hard drive, eliminating the need for memorization, we will also be able to transmit everything we see to someone else as digital signals that will stimulate the receiver's optical nerve area or brain stems or whatever is there... They can already do it with hearing aids as I am learning recently. Imagine having Yahoo! chat in your brain so you can communicate with anyone at anytime (provided they want to communicate). Ever wonder if ESP was real?

The other day Tomoe and I where brainstorming what it would be like to have this ability... what possibilities are there? Remember how when you were a kid you wished you could have a robot that looked like you go to school in your place? Well, if we have hard drives and internet access in our brain, as well as clones, this is possible... Teleportation? who needs it? If I have 10 clone Kevin's, some in the US and some in Japan, I can keep all but one in a state of suspended animation. The clone in Japan will of course save all his memories and thoughts, and when it is time to have a meeting in the US, all he has to do is transfer these memories to the US clone. The US clone would take over as if he as the guy from Japan. Of course w don't need clones, and rich people would be buying poor peoples bodies all the time to do "bad" things... but just think about it... the possibilities are endless. I would have a sports Kevin that is more physically fit that the business Kevin. He might also have alot of broken teeth because I wouldn't have to worry about it. I after all, I am only sports Kevin when I play football.

We would have as many lives as we have clones. If one clone was in a plane crash, the only thing that woudl be lost is the memories experienced betwen the last transfer and the death of that clone... unless of course that clone had time to send the latest backup.

Thrill-seekers could jump out of a plane, sending the last memories to the clone safe at home only moments before SPLAT.

I am a little disappointed that having taken a looong break from my daily NPR (and basically all news updating) I have not seen much about Is real and Palestine... I guess everything there is all hunky-dory now. Of course if I had really tried, I could be extremely informed just by checking the web, so I am just as disappointed in myself, but I will take a while this week to theorize on why the news suddenly? (or has it been a while?) stopped covering that.

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