Monday, December 18, 2006

Small things, little bits of technology, and all the connections...

Headlines: "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff' author dies of heart attack"                      Inside Bay Area - NEW: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff' author dies of heart attack 
Headline: "Machines can't save our world / Kim family's story shows limitations of new technology"                                                                                                                 Link to Machines can't save our world / Kim family's story shows limitations of new technology

Carlson's and Kim's death are linked by an invisible thread

What is interesting about the untimely deaths of these two individuals is that small stuff matters in very similar ways. Because it is all the small stuff that is connected to other small stuff, that when you look at all the small stuff interconnected it becomes really big important stuff. This is the basis of systems theory, it is a basic component of spiral dynamics, it is the basis of biological systems, it is the basis of neuro-cognitive psychology, it is the basis of social networks, and even technological networks. The invisible thread is that element or interface that we as humans provide a consciousness to connect them all. We can operate in a world of small stuff, manage all the small stuff, and be connected to all the small stuff. Its not that hard, it does not require sweat, and it might just save your life.

Ironically, the guy promoting a book about holiday stress dies of cardiac arrest on flight from one book appearance to another. Sadly, the guy who reviews tech gadgets didn't have a satellite phone or portable GPS to find a way out of the wilderness.

The second article states technology can't save our world. Well, no one machine, no one device, not one helicopter infrared camera can do it. But that's not what this article is about. Its about all the devices connected. One cellphone is useless without infrastructure to allow it to connect to emergency services. One anecdote about how to pat yourself on the back will not lower cortisol while you spend the holidays making public appearances on different coasts.  

What is lacking is the connection these two men made. One analyzes new gadgets that makes our life better, and the other analyzes new behaviors to make our life better. Yet neither made the connection in their own life to have the gadget that would have saved one and the behaviors that might have prolonged the other.

One can not say for certain if Mr. Kim had spent $39 rental fee for a satellite phone or purchased one for $700 dollars. Or if he had purchased any number of GPS devices ranging from $500 & up what might have been the outcome?

Nor can one say for certainty if Mr Carlson had in the last 6 months had his homosystiene levels checked, or gotten a C-reactive protein test or any number of indicators for heart disease. Or whether a defibrillator was on board and if somebody even used it.

What we can sketch out is this - these were 20th century men living in a 21th century world. In the 20th century we lived in a cause and effect world. Big forces caused big effects, the two world wars can be seen like chess pieces, with clear black and white sides. But were all connected. We have multiple redundant systems that keep us connected. Cellphones, laptops, email, and on and on... In the 20th century newsreels fed us information, major network anchors fed us headlines, but not now...Not in the 21th century. We are the person of the year...

We are connected, we are networked, but are we aware of all the connections? This is the real issue. Can we be aware of all the small stuff we are connected to? If we can't who can help us? Who will emerge as the one that begins to see all the connections to all the small stuff. Is the next generation ready?

It is not just technology and communications, but we are now looking at our biological selves as connected networks of small stuff. Digestive systems connected to endocrine systems, connected to nervous systems. Then we have the brain itself, a barely mined golden vane of separate neuron based 'small stuff' of visual, emotional, and motor networks.

The days of matching a cough to a pill, and the removal of a dictator to democracy are over. Now we have to begin the long hard haul to put all the small stuff into the big things that happen. Welcome my 20th century friends, this is the 21st century.

In socio-economic and political realms, the gurus are emerging, certainly Al Gore comes to mind in terms of environmental small stuff that is connected. And some might even point to persons like Dr Weil and Chopra as gurus in the world of health and wellness. 

Those are just the first generation of forward thinkers, yet who are going to take the place of Mr Carlson in terms of behaviors and Mr Kim in the world of gadgets? Hopefully persons who see that all the small stuff matters because all the small stuff is connected to you.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

BionicPulse(Technology+myLife): Holiday Meetup

The Holiday Meetup for BionicPulse: The Cognitive Science Enthusiasts Group is coming up so click here to RSVP (Its FREE!).

Sneak Preview:

Welcome psychology, neuroscience, consciousness, health, nutrition-fitness, and technology enthusiasts. This is the first Holiday Meetup for BionicPulse. The place were real cognitive science and technology "meets up" with overall wellness. If you have an interest to meet others in a causal setting, and talk about how technologies and mankind mix to help us live better,  then this is your Meetup!

No PhD's required, all levels of interest are welcome.

This Week of Holiday Shopping:
Discuss and discover "hands on" with some cool ideas that use the latest in neuroscience, health science and technology. This "Hot Chocolate" break is a show and tell to help others get ideas for tech gifts for the holidays. There are lots of interesting technologies that mix brain science, medical science and even the science of consciousness into great gift ideas.

As host I will get the show and tell started with real life examples of biofeedback relaxation video games , the new Nike-Ipod trainer, and latest Microsoft Smartwatch Live tools to see how they work. Check them out then Go Shopping!

Some Other Cool Holiday Ideas If you can't RSVP:

 http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060622_migraine_zapper.html

http://www.smartbraingames.com/view_products.asp

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/11/shoji-symbiotic-hosting-online-jog-instrument/

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/12/wii-sports-training-and-fitness/

http://www.wilddivine.com/WisdomQuest/

 

***Remember: Please bring in ideas and or stuff you have or would like to have for the holidays. Anything cool and techy is welcome we all need ideas.

Meet and share with others your interest in new science, in cool technologies for human consciousness and for the joy of the holidays!

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

BionicPulse Meetup: Dancing with a Stranger...

(Holiday Meetup Click here) Not ready read below:

Social anxiety is a real condition. It even has its own society, known  as the Social Anxiety Association, I am not sure how difficult it is to join, but you can insert punchline here on how many show up to meetings.

According to the National Institute of Health: People with social phobia have a persistent, intense, and chronic fear of being watched and judged by others and being embarrassed or humiliated by their own actions.

I have a meetup called BionicPulse that I began. I do not suffer from social anxiety. One would presuppose that people who join Meetup.com would be devoid of social anxiety. Yet, consistently the majority of members of every group I analyzed only 5-8 percent show up on any  given meetup. On average half of those who RSVP do not show up. So what is going on?

To find out if you have social anxiety or maybe place yourself somewhere in the spectrum of social phobia, Columbia University has a free online test. Please take it here.

I scored a 29 which is in the lowest unlikely 0-30 category. I was surprised that I scored as high as I did. If your not sure you want to join BionicPulse meetup I ask that you take the test, and respond to this blog on whether the test changed your mind.

After you score high and you demand a bottle of Effexor a drug for SAD, I would like to introduce you to a novel treatment. A virtual reality world known as Second Life.

Second Life is a free online 3-D world where you can create any kind of character and travel around and talk others. You can walk or fly and even build your own store or house.

I tried an experiment. Unlike other online worlds SecondLife has no violence, it has no criminals per se, and there is no death. No fear. So I sought out to find if it were possible to find true Tenderness.

Let me define my idea of true Tenderness: An act of kindness without regard to ones own fragility. Helping others to succeed, at the expense of ones own goals.

I was unable to find it. I was unable to find any charity. All kinds of virtual businesses have set up shop in SecondLife, bookstores, musicians, virtual 3-D furniture stores for your virtual home, and of course even sex shops.

There is no fee to use SecondLife, but all commerce is transacted through Linden dollars. And Linden Labs the maker of SecondLife makes a fee on all transactions I.e. eBay. If you want a permanent storefront or house, you also must pay Linden Labs for the virtual land. But you can roam around meeting all types of characters for free as long as you want.

I mention charity because while I was in SecondLife, the hurricane Katrina hit just a few weeks before. I thought 200,000 plus CPUs and GPUs buzzing away building virtual 3-D houses and stores and not one cent to a charity for Katrina victims. Ironic.

I had one moment though that was a break through. I was always shy as a child. I am audio dyslexic, so I spoke later than most babies...Yet I overcame my disabilities and speak in public often in my life, and have little problem mingling at parties or clubs.

So late one night I was flying around visiting online 3-D casinos and found a site for ballroom dancing. It was a virtual lillypad of fireflies and buttercups floating over a copper sea. The large lillypad had built in scripts that when you and a partner entered onto a lillypad your characters were able to dance cha-cha, foxtrot, and salsa dance steps with out touching a single key.

I can actually ballroom dance, I have taken over two years of lessons and so I know what it should look like. Yet I rarely if ever dance with anyone other than my wife ever. The moment magic happened is when I asked a perfect stranger to dance. I am not a great ballroom dancer, still a beginner and usually terrified to reveal my weakness in any specific type of dance. But I felt some kind of emotion from being able to dance with a stranger without fear of what she thought of my dancing... It was all software.

When her intended partner finally appeared, I told her she was a very good dancer and disappeared. But I experienced no shame, no embarrassment. I realized that I could travel around and simply move on from one event to another.

I left SecondLife forever after that night.

What I learned was I did have some social anxiety, no not severe, but enough that asking a stranger to dance in real life made fearful enough to realize that when I was not responsible for the dancing I felt no shame. And why should I feel shame even if I wasn't a great dancer. I could just move on and continue to travel from one event in my first life to another.

Though her act of dancing with a stranger was not an intentional act of tenderness, it still was a gentle caring act without judgement. It aided me far more than I believe it could have aided her. Though I doubt she was fearful of any danger or harm to her, I was able to overcome my fear of Dancing with a Stranger.  

Sunday, October 8, 2006

Deviants: Offline intelligence to Integrated Gadgets

Proximity will connect to Personality

I am currently working out my academic future. So listening to a professor drone on about numbers and symbols that represent nothing in his presentation nearly killed my spirit to live. As it did half the class. I wonder if a part of them died each day in class?

I had wanted to pursue Cybernetics, but I came to realize in my second bout with college Calculus that I have no interest in converting sequential symbols with no context Into visual spatial concepts. My deficit includes auditory sequential processing also.

 HOW DO I KNOW> HOW CAN I BE SO SPECIFIC?

Well, I have taken many intelligence tests, and I have a major deficit. If the auditory and symbolic sequencing was the sum average of my Intelligence Quotient, I would be just above mild mental retardation. Luckily, my other mental attributes are well above average enabling me to qualify for MENSA, in which I am a member.

These Tests I mentioned, include WAIS-III, the Strong Interest Inventory, and the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator tests. I am according to the Strong Inventory:

 Investigative, Social, Artistic or ISA which makes me well suited for the following careers: 

                        

 

As you can see I am very good fit for a job as a psychologist. As well as physical therapist, which is also apropos since I wish to get my masters in Fitness/Nutrition. 

Now what do gadgets have to do with this blog entry?

As anybody who is watching social network sites like Facebook, MySpace or even dating network sites like Dating.com can see they all lack empirical data sets. If I want to hang out with other Investigative, Social, Artistic people I am out of luck...

 Take a look at my Myer-Briggs profile:  

I turn out to be an ENFP or what they call an Extraversion, Intuition, Feeling, Perceiving and "ENFPs are typically enthusiastic innovators, always seeing new possibilities and new ways of doing things. They have a lot of imagination and initiative for starting projects" according to MBTI studies.

So we have Web 2.0 technologies being powered by survival of the fittest, articles abound about those in network sites that have to fight to get seen.

Now enter my gadgets, I have an Ipod Nano, a Swatch smartwatch, and Audiovox Smartphone. (Not to mention tabletPC and desktops) At any moment I will be alerted by my synchronized gadgets, from WiFi to Broadcast Smart Object via FM radio signals, I am never forgetting minor sequential data.

Now a string of GPS and WiFi enabled tools are out in the Market. Proximity connected to Personality?   Meet HP's answer:

 

So where are we going? Both MBTI and the Strong Inventory tests were web based, and my gadgets are now sync to web interfaces. So why aren't my gadgets working to integrate with my social profile?

Already web interfaces have been developed to present complex networked data seamlessly.   Here is one of my favorites LivePlasma:

We have syncing of data, we have intuitive data interfaces, wireless gadgets, and extensive personality profiles, all we need is to get all of our offline intelligence's connected to each other.

Seems pretty simple, in that all the tools and building blocks are already there.

Here is where meetup meets neuro-cognitive testing, 5 years from now wine tasting for ENFP's or Introverts photo group. What new dynamics will arise from social groups based on proximity, personality, and pursuits?

Do we want to group together persons with sequential deficits? Would we generate greater bonds? I need to sleep on it.

Friday, September 22, 2006

The Meetup BionicPulse (Technology+myLife)

The Holiday Meetup for BionicPulse: The Cognitive Science Enthusiasts Group is coming up so click here to RSVP (Its FREE!).

Sneak Preview:

Welcome psychology, neuroscience, consciousness, health, nutrition-fitness, and technology enthusiasts. This is the first Holiday Meetup for BionicPulse. The place were real cognitive science and technology "meets up" with overall wellness. If you have an interest to meet others in a causal setting, and talk about how technologies and mankind mix to help us live better,  then this is your Meetup!

No PhD's required, all levels of interest are welcome.

This Week of Holiday Shopping:
Discuss and discover "hands on" with some cool ideas that use the latest in neuroscience, health science and technology. This "Hot Chocolate" break is a show and tell to help others get ideas for tech gifts for the holidays. There are lots of interesting technologies that mix brain science, medical science and even the science of consciousness into great gift ideas.

As host I will get the show and tell started with real life examples of biofeedback relaxation video games , the new Nike-Ipod trainer, and latest Microsoft Smartwatch Live tools to see how they work. Check them out then Go Shopping!

Some Other Cool Holiday Ideas If you can't RSVP:

 http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060622_migraine_zapper.html

http://www.smartbraingames.com/view_products.asp

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/11/shoji-symbiotic-hosting-online-jog-instrument/

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/12/wii-sports-training-and-fitness/

http://www.wilddivine.com/WisdomQuest/

 

***Remember: Please bring in ideas and or stuff you have or would like to have for the holidays. Anything cool and techy is welcome we all need ideas.

Meet and share with others your interest in new science, in cool technologies for human consciousness and for the joy of the holidays!

Friday, September 15, 2006

The Death of Right Brain in Mathematics

As I trudge through Calculus, I realized why America is to compete in math and science. The fact remains in mathematics as in other schools of higher learning we have departmentalized these institutions to such an extent that science has lost much of its creative force and art departments have lost a lot of their relevancy.

Yet before I rant about Film schools that won't let you until you get a PhD in cinematic studies. I am going to focus on Mathematics.

Math is a language, an amazing language that paints by numbers.It is a language and should be taught as a French, German or Italian is taught. It should be taught for the purpose to be used in situations that require precision and accuracy. "Where is the train station" needs to be precise. Where English or french approach precision, math provides the language to describe any object moving or not within the smallest degree possible. Something is small in English, but 1.2 X 10^-32 is more accurate and leaves even our best words like tiny in the dust.

Math is not a set of symbols to recognize specific operations to manipulate more symbols, so that after a series of more symbolic tricks we get less symbols. It is not a set of exercises to recognize rational equations to reduce to simplest means for fun and profit. Nor was Calculus created to test your memory of tangent and cosine functions as a value approaches a limit.

Yet that is what is taught. Newton did not develop Calculus to test someone's skill in applying algebraic functions that are to be tested with specific definitions or theorems. Rather he created it, to . But you would be hard pressed to find a professor to teach the modeling of any environment with math using calculus as a tool. In fact I doubt you could find it at all. Unless you are not in a math class, and I am sure then in Astro-Physics it will appear. And I know of so many horror stories of students that loved science only to die in advanced classes due to weak math skills.

This not to say practice of using polynomial rational equations is not needed. Obviously it is, you can't model motion or many other phenomenon without them.Yet...

WHAT THE FUCK DOES REPRESENT???!!!!

No one will tell you, why because the man or woman teaching math has little idea what it means. Not to say they do not know what a limit of a function is, but rather what in the world it represents. Is it the growth of a virus? The economic cycle of a third world nation? Is it the feedback from two gears shifting?

But that, that right there requires some of that right brain stuff. That part of the emotional and gestalt part that you would be hard pressed to find from a mathematics professor. Imagine a math professor with emotion or passion, I can't seem to remember a single one. I am sure they exist, a few rare weird apples...

Why what happens? Why are there right brains so under utilized? Let's take a look at the differences:


Right Hemisphere Style

Rational

  • Responds to verbal instructions
  • Problem solves by logically and sequentially looking at the parts of things
  • Looks at differences
  • Is planned and structured
  • Prefers established, certain information
  • Prefers talking and writing
  • Prefers multiple choice tests
  • Controls feelings
  • Prefers ranked authority structures

Sequential

  • Is a splitter: distinction important
  • Is logical, sees cause and effect

Draws on previously accumulated, organized information

Left Hemisphere Style

Intuitive

  • Responds to demonstrated instructions
  • Problem solves with hunches, looking for patterns and configurations
  • Looks at similarities
  • Is fluid and spontaneous
  • Prefers elusive, uncertain information
  • Prefers drawing and manipulating objects
  • Prefers open ended questions
  • Free with feelings
  • Prefers collegial authority structures

Simultaneous
  • Is a lumper: connectedness important
  • Is analogic, sees correspondences, resemblances


Draws on unbounded qualitative patterns that are not organized into sequences, but that cluster around images

//////

Imagine a math class that had used feelings to illustrate time critical problems as drawings that fit patterns, and all variables were objects as if x or y were not just variables but actually stood for something like a spaceship or a virus, and imagine a teacher asking how do we get to Mars? Or how can we slow the rate of growth to save a population?

But so far I have not seen a college math teacher capable of any of these qualities. Yet why do I care?, what could my reasoning be, I should just shut up and learn the seemingly random non-sensical symbols that require operations from past math classes because I am told to use when I see this specific set of math symbols?

Because I think it is important that America succeed in science, and if we are to solve energy problems, and fix the pollution problems, and deal with diseases that plague us, then maybe we should develop a system of math that uses the whole brain rather than the half.

We also know that increase plasticity in neural networks, and there is a real biological reason you can't remember those trigometric identities.

To often those real world problems are left to be solved by the left brain people, Oh you know, the ones that use only emotion and conjecture to explain why global warming does not matter. Or other non-scientific stuff like stem-cell research or in-vitro fertilization.

I will write on future blogs on the splitting of left and right brain systems in academics and how it has put science on the defensive, against leaders who use very little left brain logic. For I do not advocate one side over the other, in science or politics.

And sure we can minds, and we do, just listen to a math lecture at a major university, chances are the accents are so thick it will take three TA's and an independent study group to decipher. Why do we have to them?

But as we approach the end of the first 21st century decade, what systems have we installed to prepare the 21st century generation for the problems we have left?

Friday, August 25, 2006

Yesterday's Proxy-Today's Rules-Tomorrow's Tech

My last blog on the details of war. This lacks my focus on cognitive brain science and technological culture. So forgive me.

First Kudos to the Cheney administration, they flipped a netwar of non-state actors, requiring diplomacy and subvert actions into a full blown cold war with the same proxy players China and Russia. And by doing so set a far more difficult War on Terror into a highly connected psycho-cultural battle which turns British subjects into dangerous subversives.

 

In an August 9th article "Fighting by Proxy" by Michael Hirsh is missing the real proxy. It is not Iran and Syria's influence that will loom over a larger conflict between the Lebanon's Hizbullah and Israel. The real players are China and Russia.

China and Russia are big traders with Iran. To Michael Hirsh's credit he does mention the sale of missiles. But let's not forget the building of a nuclear reactor in the city of Bushehr worth nearly a billion dollars.

Just off the wire, Russia is not going to back sanctions against Iran for nuclear violations. Hmmm... I wonder why? Hirsch misses this and the much larger aspect. If the Bush administration had any international clout left it could have stopped the billion dollar sale of arms to Venezuela's Chavez from Russia.

The question really becomes why do we have so few chips on the international table to negotiate with? Again oil enters the picture. High oil prices help Russia. They are no where as efficiently as Saudi Arabia. So Iraq offline helps Russia as well as Venezuela and of course Saudi Arabia.

How do we get more chips on the table? Well pundits are focused on Iran and Syria, we really need to focus on Russia and China, whom until we can pressure them, they will veto any sanctions on Iran.China needs the oil, Russia needs the technology trade partner.  

This is where technology plays a key role.

Reagan used Star Wars as a threat. However critical to getting the Russians back to the table is negotiate. But it was an imaginary force that was hotly debated as a chip on the table.

We have two chips that might bring China and Russia back to the table, in regards to Iran. One Robotic Manufacturing, if we were to begin say a US-Japan initiative to replace all outsourced manufacturing to China by Robotics by say 2024, that might get China to wake up. It's a long shot, but hey, where is our Star Wars defense missile shield?

Next Russia, If we set in motion The Energy Project, where we declare the building of the largest sea wave generators from Maine to Miami and from Anchorage to Los Angeles, along with major announcements to Hydrogen, wind and solar, the announcement alone could drive the oil markets down even only briefly.

Again a lot of this is smoke and mirrors, but hey look at the downside? More domestic energy resources? And look of the upside, if we can convince the Chinese to share this technology we could spare them a catastrophic depression in 2015, and Russia booming oil bonanza could go bust if we did actually build to reduce our need for oil releasing pressure on already strained oil supply that China needs.

But how likely is this to occur? Bush is the last president to suggest such things, although I do remember a guy named Albert who suggested the same things in 2000.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Forking the NeuroMarketing of the War on Terror

As we in the United States approach midterm elections. We Americans are given the sad choice of either Democratic or Republican representation.

As Chris Matthews plainly attempted to decipher the difference between Democratic Iraq policy and the current administration's policy. Watch Howard Dean wiggle around.

As this blog is about the nexus between neuro-biology and technological culture, the Democrats need to fork the development of the War on Terror. In open source development, or any software development forking is when another party makes significant changes to how a platform functions. Primarily but not exclusively changing the definitions of specific functions.

 The forking must be the War on Terror is a psychological warfare, one were actions like Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, or spying on ourselves, or X-Raying our our naked bodies in public, or dumping white phosphorus on the citizens of iraqi towns, or secret prisons, or simply occupying a Middle East Muslim nation, changes the thought process of the intended neuromarket of minds.

These acts, all done for "our safety" causes more harm, not just idealogical harm, but in the global neuromarket of minds. As you increase mortality salience, (I am mortal I fear death) the complex comprimises of the cerbral cortex, begins to give way to the base instincts of the amygdala.

And why not? Evolutionary speaking, if you are being chased by a tiger, do you want the reptilian brain to make microsecond decisions or the paleo-mammaliant o think how the orange stripes on the tiger remind you of a persian carpet at home.

But let's get back to the fork in the road.

Democrats need to articulate that the War on Terror is about connections, culture, and actions. Blowing up arab villages, with even the most "surgical" weaponary is a creating blowback from the War on Terror.

To decrease Terror, simply decrease Terror...

Because the global neuromarket of minds will polarize, not along heady cerebral ideas of democracy or cabinet posts, but along ethnic and religous lines. We know this based on 100's of studies in Terror Management Theory.

We protect our own. We defend the invincible center, when mortality salience increases. We do so as to extend our line of selfish genes. Our minds have simple built in neural networks that quickly delineate US versus THEM. Or as social psychologists say "in and out groups".

So the only fix in Iraq is to decrease the mortality salience, decrease the glucocorticoids, and get the lights, water, and oil running as fast as possible.

Iraq solution is right in their backyard. It's called Sunni Saudi Arabia, and other moderate middle east nations who do not want the Iran-Iraq alliance to become too strong.

Sadly Iraq the formerly 2nd largest producer of oil, being offline, helps both Russian crude with smaller margins as well as Saudi Arabia with huge margins. So a complex set of incentives and manuevers may be out side the skill set of Dr. Rice. But not outside the rhetoric of Democratic leaders.  

Thus the deadline or timetable is not for the Iraqi people it is for the entire middle east. There is of course alot of work to get a summit of arab nations to help Iraq. But with Turkey dealing with its border problems with Kurdistan rebels and the rise of Shia Iran next to Saudi Arabi, the very least Dean could have delineated is assemblage of a plan.

Forking the War on Terror from Iraq, into a globally connected, psychological based campaign of emotional shocks to the hearts and minds of poor disenfranchised muslims is just the beginning.

The Democrats need to explain, that Gitmo, the torture, the occupation is fueling the hearts and minds of British subjects who instead of seeing themselves as subjects of the British Empire, instead as fMRI's and social psych tests reveal, the reptilian brain we all have will strike out against THEM...

Monday, August 14, 2006

2 Wars 1 Mind

Two Wars one biologically evolved mind...

 

One fails to realize that "The War on Terror" is an information War. Seperate from the fighting in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Not seperate in technology, not seperate in overlapping idealogical philosphies, not seperate in the minds of certain politcal leaders and thinkers, yet seperate still the same.

How, then are the seperate?

The Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars from a strategic military standard are completed. Afghanistan and Iraq have had elections and some assemblage of governance. Lebanon has a government, and all indications look as if a UN force will hopefully keep Hezbollah forces from raiding Israel's border towns.

The problem is that blowing up towns, villages, destroying infrastructure like water and power, has an effect on the other war, that war on terror.

Leaders such as the United States Republican adminstration, wish to continually blurr the two wars. The blur is constant and the opposition has not assembled a language to counter it.

Yet the recent foiled British attack using liquid fuel, by British subjects indicates that this is not a war that strategic military minds can solve.

The US via NSA is trying it, by literally attacked our civil rights, and so far as we know not one public announcement has been made to suggest it is working. Regardless, democracy in Iraq, Lebanon and even governments in Iran and now Somalia have radical islamics in power.

These turn of events suggest that the other war, the information war we as freedom loving americans can see is lost. Because, unlike WWII where channels of information were tightly controlled, we are now all connected.

To operate in this theater of war, information works on two platforms one on silicon and copper and the other on wet circuits of neurons and chemcial transmitters.

When you blow up a house next to yours, you now need to understand what chemicals will be released and change the platform's function.

This blog is about the interface between the changes of those two platforms, the technology man uses and how it effects the mind of man.