The Digital Self

The idea is reminiscent of something out of a Phillip K. Dick or Isaac Asimov story but it is almost a reality. Think of your entire life on a computer. Every memory, every moment uploaded onto a server that is your life, digitized forever. Sound too far fetched?

Consider that we have our lives spread among several different systems. You have photo albums on Google or Photobucket. You have them on your home computer and CDs that you’ve burned. You have public, private, career, and educational information stored in your computer and online in your social networking sites. Your emails, conservations, tweets, texts, everything that makes up you is somewhere in the digital world. What if we were to take existing technologies and somehow aggregate all of that scattered information into one server configured strictly for you? Consider it one large “you” database. Then on another server an application sits and runs a program that creates an avatar of you using all of that stored information in the database as a profile. The application server could then run a series of engines that uses the database as a primer for who you are. In essence you exist as a fully rendered artificial representation of your natural self down to the idiosyncrasies like cracking your knuckles or grinding your teeth.

Think of being able to preserve yourself, digitally? You become sick or start to feel the effects of old age and you can pass on your memories and wisdom onto your virtual self, becoming immortal. Think Jor-El’s presence in the Fortress of Solitude within the world of Superman. Your family could still talk to you through your virtual self. You could continue to learn and experience life beyond the grave. You could become immortal.

Then, take the concept of MMORPGS and you can create a world for those avatars to live in and interact. Facebook 3D. You could play scrabble with your grandchildren or chat with other dead friends. You could get a job and earn money performing certain tasks that a computer program would automatically do. A new species of human existence could eventually come about.

Despite being a fully sentient experience we have the technology in its dismantled parts. How long before we are able to put the pieces together in the right sequence? Considering the amount of computing resources needed to accomplish such a task, it’s almost mind boggling. Ultimately, there would be a host of problems to contend with in order to have an operational virtual self. Look how bad it gets when Gmail or Twitter goes down.

Cost is one thing. Upgrades and maintenance is another. Disaster recovery would be a huge issue. It would be the virtual equivalent to a heart attack or stroke. How could you perform the necessary tasks to reboot or reformat your virtual self if you are dead? You would also have to have the necessary environment for such a system. Cold rooms, ventilation, and power would be essential to maintain yourself, electronically. The technology may be there, but the conceptualization and execution may still be decades away. But let’s imagine a world where it is a reality.

You wear a device similar to one from this article. You wear this thing around your neck. It’s a multi sensory device that records audio, video, still picture, and other sensory stimuli that you experience every day. Additionally, you have an application for your phone, computer, and what not that records transactions such as receipts, texts, calls, and emails and converts them into code. Each night you remove the device that you wear and plug it into a docking station where it downloads and updates the database as well as the application from your transactions updating the database in real time. Your online self learns those experiences like, “Ooh, I just tried a fish taco today and I don’t like them.” or “I just watched the new Harry Potter movie and I can now discuss it with my other virtual friends.”

Or, let’s take the concept into a whole new direction. I don’t have a blackberry or another smart phone so I don’t know if this is already a possibility, but how about the next generation PDA. This time, though, the Personal Digital Assistant is really just that. You take your entire set of habits and input them as rules for the online self. Money Management, Scheduling, etc. I know we do this now, so the concept doesn’t sound new. I already have direct deposit of my paycheck and automatic withdrawal on all but a couple utilities. However, that is still something you need to set up manually. What if your digital self had the logic to make those payments on particular days other than the ones you already have designated? It was a good month for work, let’s up the credit card payment 10%. The holidays are coming, let’s not pay that electric bill until the next pay day before it’s due.

You can let your online self check your scheduling and make appointments for you. Say you just had a dental appointment and you would like to schedule the next one. The digital self knows you just had an appointment because it was schedule in your calendar. It knows you prefer Saturday appointments and it has to be scheduled sixth months or more out. It checks your schedule, contacts the dentist’s office and asks for an appointment to be made at a certain date and then leaves you a message that it has been scheduled and added to your calendar.

Using the digital self database, the digital you can see receipts for the last year and plan ahead based on what you tell it to be looking for in terms of scheduling. The digital self sees that you have gone out for your anniversary to the same restaurant for the last three years. It can then ask you if you would like to make a reservation for the same time this year. Perhaps you’ve gone to two or three different ones over the year. It can give you a choice. Once you give it the go ahead, it makes the reservation, electronically, with the restaurant. It also reminds you at a preset time to get a present for different holidays or birthdays.

Now, a lot of things are contingent on this actually working. First of all, the places your digital self interact with need to be able to communicate with each other, although, a lot of restaurant and stores already have the ability to make online reservations. It’s just a matter of the digital self being able to use the web to do so. Also, I’m not sure how many doctors have the capability but it could be as easy as them having an email address for the receptionist.

Having a tool, regardless of the application, would be a huge time saver to a lot of people. Not to mention, it could do several of these transactions or tasks simultaneously. In the short run, just having apps on your smart phone that talked to each other would be a huge advancement, but of course, there are concerns . If you give a program that much control of your life it could lead to piracy and theft. Rogue applications could be made to go out and strip your identity. Not to mention, it could tweak it or clone it giving the hacker the ability to make your life hell. Also, like before, if the system crashes or goes on the fritz, the information you have stored would be lost. It would be nice if there was a backup hard drive for the table each day or week to be able to hold all your appointments, allowing you to go to a desktop or other type of computer to access that information and maybe print it out.

As much as I would love to see this become a reality, I would rather see the tech sector focus on ways to solver bigger problems in near future. The personal interaction with people we get on a daily basis is what makes us human. Not to mention, giving our lives over to an electronic device is one step closer to the evils described in The Terminator series or The Matrix. Computers making decisions for us instead of at our request is one of the basic premises of all “Evil Computers/Robots” films. Perhaps we are not ready for this type of advancement, but the ability to preserve ourselves after we die may be one step closer to immortality. I’m sure there is a philosophical debate on whether this is a wise thing and it probably questions the existence of a soul. If we exist solely online outside of ourselves it will never be the same as existing in the real world. But think of the possibilities.

iRenaissance

We’re due. I know we are. If not, it’s time somebody started the wheels turning on the next Renaissance. The world has been plunged into war and recession. The need for renewable resources is at a fever pitch. People are finally beginning to understand the dire need to turn this sinking ship, called Earth, around. We have so many bright people in this world working on innovations, but who really cares how small my iPod is or whether or not I can watch en entire season of The Office online? It’s time to start working on the infrastructure of our societies and reshape our destiny. We’ve become so cut off from the community, hiding behind our technology. It’s time to collaborate as a world to solve our most threatening problems.

It’s so close if you think about it. Across the globe, little movements towards a greater existence are occurring without even making us aware of their total impact. Tiny discoveries in gadgetry should be thought of as possible components for larger use application. Style should be mixed with function in our designs for buildings and roadways. However, let us not builds Towers of Babel but a Rocks of Gibraltar. Let us draw on the successes of our predecessors without ignoring their foibles lest we repeat their mistakes. As we move forward in innovation, let us not ignore where we have been. We have to be cognizant of disaster recovery and business continuance on a global scale. Preventative steps should be taken to guard against destruction of agricultural farms, not just server farms. Let us use our knowledge of the micro to enhance the macro.

It’s all around us. Grab a copy of Time or any other publication that puts out a best of list for inventions and you can see the pieces start to fall together like a Sudoku puzzle. Why are we not getting it? There is a need for a harmony of cognitive dissonance. The idea that people all over the world have conflicting thoughts and perceptions should not be a reason for them to not share a common goal. There has to be a way to share our toys in the global sandbox. We need to stop selling ourselves short. We need to take stock of our existence and find that common ground that makes us similar.

There needs to be substantial advances in the following categories; architecture, energy, health, communication, and economics. One category is not isolated from the other. Each feeds into an overall cohesive attitude that says we have all the tools we need to solve the world’s problems, what we lack is the blueprint.

Solar, wind, and other types of renewable resources are great but the application is still far from perfect as is the development. We still need fossil fuels to run the factories that make the cars or components. Although, I do like the plants that are using methane from landfills for power.

We also need to get a handle on health care. There are way too many mistakes being made and reimbursement is a hot button issue. We have an extended lifespan, now, and we need to realize that our baby boomers are going to be around longer and so are we. I’ve personally seen a mother and daughter both living in the same assisted care facility. There needs to be some consideration for costs of supporting the elderly and technology to keep everything running smoothly.

We have an aging infrastructure in our cities and we need to look at innovative ways to improve construction without increasing our carbon footprint. Green technology being used in new construction is a start but there is also added effects on the climate. If you subscribe to the theory of global warning consider that green house gases aren’t necessarily the biggest culprit for overall temperature increase. Yeah, it doesn’t help. In fact, it exacerbates the problem. However, look at our population and use of available space. We generate a lot of energy. Energy to power all those buildings we build. Those buildings throw off energy from all the activity inside. Our cars, while expelling gases that contribute to poor air quality, expend heat and energy. Every single person is a thermal unit. With over 300 million people in the United States alone, the amount of body heat we expel has to count for something. Not to mention, when you add the rest of the world’s population. To use a horrible analogy. I keep my house around 70 degrees, year round. The heater and air conditioning work fairly well to keep this temperature. If I have family over and we are cooking dinner. I turn off the heat. Why? Because the added body heat coupled with the oven running at 350 degrees raises the temperature in the house by at least five degrees. If it’s the summertime, my air conditioning works harder than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.

As far as communication goes, the Internet, wireless devices, 3G networks and the like are fine, but what happens if all that fails? There’s a great book by Richard A. Clarke called Breakpoint. Yes, it’s science fiction but it was written by former Counter Terrorism advisor under President’s Clinton and Bush the lesser. He’s been highly critical of his previous employer’s administration but then again, who hasn’t? In short the novel describes terrorists who don’t blow up buildings with planes, but isolate The United States from the rest of the world by systematically blowing up the transatlantic cables, severing our network connections. Think Live Free or Die Hard on a global scale. We need a system of business continuance in place in the event that we lose connectivity to city services, utilities, and basically anything that runs on computers connected to a network.

Perhaps there are MIT and John Hopkins’ graduates locked away in a lab somewhere with Will Hunting tinkering away on these ideas but how come we don’t know about it? We need good solutions now, while we wait for perfect solutions to be bench tested. But where are they? I know I can’t be the only one who has this thought. In fact, this whole rant is based on a combination of reading Time’s list of the 50 Greatest Inventions of 2008 mixed with a huge plate of carb-heavy pasta inducing me into a hyperglycemia induced state of Jerry Maguire preachy-ness. Now, I don’t want us to tip the scales in favor of all out catastrophe. All this talk of innovation and technology can ultimately lead to a robot uprising lead by Nexi, the Mobile, dexterous, social robot, but you’ve seen what happens when we let the financial sector get out of hand. What if the techno geeks more advanced and better funded than the ones who hacked Paris Hilton’s cell phone were able to get into the Obamaberry?

Now as I ramble on I get further away from my point and head towards the town of Luddite. I’m all for technology as a companion, but not an overall solution. I think we can return to a more classical style which will promote better acceptance utilizing what we know we can do and how we can make it more solid in design. While, I think flying cars are highly overrated in films, it cannot hurt to make them more solid and run better without having to give up quality of construction. Instead of hurtling off towards the future in one direction, maybe we need to bring the rest of our knowledge and genius with us.

OK, the pasta is wearing off and I’m coming back into focus. Actually, just take a look at that list and take note of these items. A lot of the list was fluff, in fact some weren’t even inventions, but there is good reading there. We just need something to bring it all together.

• The Global Seed Vault
• The Dynamic Tower
• Airborne Wind Power
• The Time Eater Clock
• Google's Floating Data Center
• Smog-Eating Cement

I, Robot. You, Lazy

I will now impart unto the three laws of house cleaning, for married men.

1. Never attempt to clean anything inside the house without first instruction and consent from your wife.
2. A man must obey all house cleaning orders given to him by his wife, except where such orders conflict with the first law.
3. When in doubt, ask your wife, do not attempt to improvise.

Anyone who tells you a housewife and mother are not real jobs should be taken out and shot. Taking care of a household and those within it is a thankless and penniless job for which there is no advancement. You don't get a raise. You don't get a promotion. You get more work. There is no retirement until you are admitted into an assisted living facility. It took me 22 years to appreciate all my mother did for me and my family in the way of picking up my dirty dishes and washing my dirty laundry. For this, I accept my penance of helping my wife, whenever I can to "Tidy up the joint." Now, just because house cleaning is a manual chore, doesn't mean you can't have assistance from technology. Growing up, my mother had, and actually still has, this green canister vac which I believe is a Compact. The egg shaped metal monstrosity is older than I am and still works. I remember as kid, dragging that thing out of the closet across the slate floor. You could hear it all through the house. My mom would spend two days cleaning the entire house. Friday she would clean the upstairs and do laundry. Saturdays, she would clean the downstairs. This was her routine and for 23 years our carpets looked like they were brand new. So did the furniture. I have proof in pictures of our living room from both houses that I lived in growing up. The same furniture can be seen in both places spanning 20 years.

Picture of what the Compact looks like.

While that vacuum cleaner that she has is still functional and well cared for, mine are constantly in a state of disarray. I inherited a Dirt Devil upright from a relative about six years ago and it's on its last legs. I constantly have to change the belts or clean out the brushes. I guess having four cats doesn't help anyone keep a sweeper in good condition. I could be wrong and just have about as much luck with sweepers as an eight year old has with goldfishes. Still, the sweeper got good use as my wife and I would clean our house on a weekly basis. We are nowhere the level of cleanliness that my parents' house is but while my mother has that old Compact vacuum, I started to invest in all kind of good toys to help my wife keep a clean home.

After I inherited the dirt devil, my parents bought us a Breeze, which is a canister vac with a big old filter inside. This particular model has since been discontinued and I have to constantly clean the filter off with another sweeper in order to reuse it as I can't find replacements in any store. Dirt Devil's website does have them for $25.00 but that seems excessive. I might have to reconsider since the filter has a huge chunk missing from an incident in which I sucked up something from the hearth of our fireplace that was still burning. I turned around and saw the canister filling up with smoke and quickly took the vac to the garage to put the burning hairy mess. Our new house presented another problem. We had recently moved from a two bedroom townhouse with wall to wall carpet to a three bedroom ranch wall to wall hardwood floors. Animals and hardwood floors are a bad combination as sweepers just push the hair around and you have that feeling of embarrassment when company notices the occasional tumbleweed of cat hair go tumbling by. In order to help my wife, I saw an ad for the Hover Floormate. This little handy dandy vac/floor scrubber will suck up the dirt and then scrub the floors. It's a great help versus those stupid stick mops with the pads on the end. My wife loves the Floormate and while most women would feel slighted being given cleaning supplies for Christmas, it has become a sort of tradition and my wife doesn't mind being given domestic helpers. Along with the Floormate we got a Bissel QuickSteamer for the carpet in our family/game room. My wife is a piano teacher and kids tend to track a lot of dirt into the room.

For every good gift, though, there are the bad. While the Floormate was a great idea, I also bought her a Black and Decker Scumbuster. This rotating piece of crap doesn't have enough power to scrub dishes or walls all that well. I sort of inherited it as it does do a decent job at scrubbing the litter boxes. Another great gift from my Mother was a Scunci steamer. This thing is awesome. It does a fantastic job at cleaning the soot and dirt from the inside of our wood burner as well as steaming away the spilled paint from when we did the nursery. I hate to paint and this thing helps me as I also suck at it. For that great gift there was also another bad one in the new Dirt Devil stick broom vac. This is another chargeable sweeper that doesn't have the power to suck up a hairball, let alone a piece of dry cat food. Probably one of the best gifts I got my wife was our Oreck XL. It runs around the same price as those bagless vacs but it's great for carrying around as it's only eight pounds. It's also ergonomic for my wife's carpal tunnel. The thing actually works, too. The only drawback is that the bags fill rather quickly and lose efficacy as they become full. The last gadget that I bought that I still don't think was worth it was that "Scrubbing Bubbles" shower cleaner. You hit the button and it sprays around the shower four times. I will admit that there is no mold growing in the shower, but there is still soap scum and a film on the walls that has to be cleaned regularly. Chalk that one up in the "draw" column, I guess.

To date there is only one sweeper or gadget that we are somewhat afraid of in our house. It's our newest one. I feel like Michael Keaton's son in Mr. Mom fearing for the safety of my wooby from Jaws, although we've named this one Consuela. The vacuum I'm speaking about is one of those iRobot Roombas. My Mother in Law got one just before Christmas and my wife became immediately jealous. I hopped onto the Internet and found one on the home shopping network site that offered a lot of discounts and free shipping so I figured what the heck.

The robot arrived just after Christmas and since my wife's birthday is in January, it worked out well. The concept of this round robot is to continually go over the same area, executing turns when it runs into objects. Essentially, it works like my billiards' ability. If I hit the cue ball hard enough, it will travel around the table until eventually; a ball will be knocked in the pocket. It also comes with a little post that acts as a virtual wall keeping "Consuela" from crossing the border into another room we don't want her to sweep, yet.

All in all it is a pretty neat contraption and for the most part it does work. Although, it sometimes does not want to hit that one spot that has the most dirt. Also, one night, we returned home from dinner and heard this weird noise. We came upstairs to see the robot zipping around the house on its own keeping the cats hostage on the living room couches. One of them must have bumped it off of its base and it sprang into life.

Now that my wife has all these weapons of mass dusting you would think I would be free to not have to help her. That was my original plan. After all, she hates the way I clean. I don't spray the polish onto the surface; I spray it onto the rag. That's how I was taught. When you spray it on the surface, it tends to get elsewhere and then you are slipping and sliding all over hardwood floors past the fur balls that Consuela missed. Still, as much as I would love to show utter ineptness in cleaning so that I can get out of it, I still de-hair the couches, clean the bathrooms, and the computer. I do appreciate my wife and all she does, just like I finally did with my own Mother in my 20's. If I ever hit that lottery, I'll by my wife the ultimate in cleaning, a maid. That way she and I can both enjoy a clean house and not have the backaches to show for it. I do like the looks of the house when it is spotless and it gives you a sense of pride that you achieved such a feat. Your effort does not go unnoticed. Now, if I could just get Consuela back to her base, we'd be able to enjoy it in peace and quiet.

However, I swear that it and the broom vac are planning our demise. If we leave the Oreck up there, it will be the makings of a revolution. Next thing you know, a monster vacuum will travel back from the future, bent on eliminating John Connor and we'll have the makings for a really bad, but spotless, movie.

"I'll be vac!"