Brains in Jars

I read today that researchers have managed to make a monkey control a robotic arm with their brain. This research is being heralded as the precursor to a new type of prosthetic limb allowing much improved dexterity and control over the current generation of prosthetic limbs. But I think that they're missing the larger implications of research like this: we're finally cracking the human brain.

The human brain is a hugely complex organ. Despite our many thousands of years of civilisation, we are only just beginning to reliably control the input and output of signals to and from our brain. With this recent research, it seems that we are now becoming able to interpret enough information from our brains to control limbs. There has been research in the past on artificial vision for the blind, and a form of artificial hearing has already been used on many deaf people. So far this technology is only being used aid disabled people; the quality of the artificial vision and hearing is far inferior to what our eyes and ears already provide, and the surgery is dangerous. Overall, the technologies are fairly primitive, but the framework is there and research is improving the technology daily.

It is inevitable that eventually artificial sensory data will start surpassing our own in quality and prosthetic limbs will become better than the real thing. This is essentially the technology we need for fully immersive virtual reality. If we could hook up all our sensory inputs: touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing to a computer, then we could completely control our environment electronically. If we then disable our body's actual movement and link up our muscle signals to a computer so that it can simulate movement on a virtual body, then we are now in a fully virtual environment with complete, natural control over our virtual body.

Naturally, this is far more complex than it sounds. Even assuming we had all the technology to replace our natural sensory data, we would need to create computer software that can simulate reality to a high enough degree that we can properly interact with it. That involves not just the graphical side of things, but physics simulation. Walking relies on a very specific system of feedback and motion. Any sort of lag on the computer's part would either make walking seem extremely unnatural or we would simply fall over. I also suspect that our hands, for example, can resolve touch input to a significantly higher temporal resolution than the visual input to our eyes. Computer games currently do their physics calculations to match the graphical framerate of the game. Physics in a virtual world would need to be continual rather than discreet in order for humans to feel comfortable and natural. The graphical framerate would also need to never drop below a certain threshold.

Assuming we can get all these problems out of the way, we would have a very good platform for the future of humanity. Humans as a species are getting increasingly wasteful for our pleasure, running low on food and becoming increasingly unhealthy. If we played our bio-engineering cards right, we could just attach our brains to a computer and turn off our body, allowing a computer to keep it exercised, nourished and running efficiently. But then why have these wasteful bodies weighing us down? Surely it'd be better to just take out our brains, stick them in fluid filled jars and connect them up to some sort of brain management device that provides it with oxygenated, nourished blood of absolute perfect mixture and temperature with no impurities, while having our nerves connected to the "World 2.0".

Unfortuntely, this sounds like the plot for some terrible post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror. Humans don't want to live in a virtual world, they want to live in the real world; they want to eat real steak from real cows. You can see it everywhere. Philosophers have spent hundreds of person-years wondering about whether the universe is real or a product of our (or someone else's) imagination. Films such as The Matrix have followed the stories of protagonists freeing people from the fake world, into a much more vulgar real world. But I'm deadly serious. I'd much prefer to live in a virtual world than this boring rock floating through space.

Consider the implications of living in a virtual world. Firstly, bodily functions such as eating and going to the toilet, and perhaps even sleeping aren't necesarry, though they may be performed for fun. You could eat as many perfectly cooked steaks as you want, for example, and not become fat. Video games could be completely immersive. You could literally enjoy a whole scale version of Grand Theft Auto; with pain enabled if you're into that sort of thing. Everyone could have a huge house with everything they've ever wanted and the wardrobes would have a search feature. You could own and drive a Bugatti Veyron without worrying about price of the car or fuel, nor how much damage you're doing to the environment. My point is, you could do a whole lot more in a virtual world.

Though, it wouldn't come completely for free. People would need to maintain the infrastructure, do real life research into technology and science. We would need to have power stations to provide electricity for the computers. Since we would be entirely computerised, people could take over robot bodies in order to interact with the real world and perform maintenance work and upgrades, as well as doing physical research that is impossible to do in a simulation. Within the world, you would still have musicians, artists, designers, software developers, game creators and many people following creative persuits that don't depend on the physical plane.

I think that the world will eventually be displaced by a virtual world. Initially it will be normal humans connected to it, then brains in 'jars', then finally we will probably move our entire mind to the realm of electronic processing. I personally think that it is inevitable, but a long way off. That is, assuming humans survive for long enough.

Plan E executed successfully... sort of

Well. We built a desk for the Logitech G25. Overall it works pretty well, but there are a few nagging faults with it.

The main problem is that one leg is slightly shorter than the others, so it rocks back and forth unless I prop it up with something. It also doesn't stay stationary under intense steering at maximum force feedback level; it sometimes falls over or slides along the wooden floor. In an ideal situation, the table would not move whatsoever, and would be bolted to the floor, but I'm not allowed to do this. Next from ideal would be to somehow attach the table to the chair, so that any force I apply to the table is balanced out by a force to the chair and overall the system doesn't move in any game-disturbing manner, though my drink might still fall over. I don't think this is appropriate, however, because my chair is actually just a generic "executive" office chair and I use it for other things. So where does this leave me?

I think I can solve the stabilisation and sliding faults with the simple addition of a soft rubber grib on the bottom of each leg. Perhaps two on the short leg. This will, unfortunately, make it more prone to falling where it would have previously just slid. I will counter this with the addition of a heavy weight on the back legs. A heavy weight should reduce sliding and toppling.

Another problem with the system in general is that it's even uglier than I am. It's made of five different types of wood, all different colours. Thankfully, unlike me, it can be fixed without spending thousands on surgery. I can probably paint or stain the wood so that it's of a consistent colour, and find some panneling to hide a few of the nasty implementation details. Perhaps sand it down a bit, too.

Nevertheless, I managed to complete Class C of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in an hour or two, getting gold in most races first time. It's not a particularly wonderful achievement, but it's far better than I did with the controller, despite that I used the controller on auto with standard physics with traction control and ASM, and the steering wheel with manual transmission on "Professional" physics with "Simulation" steering, and no added helper gremlins. Additionally, it's a far more involving and interesting experience.

School's out forever

I have now officially finished school. Fantastic! Unfortunately, I still have a seven exams to go before I really finish school. Nevertheless, it's nice to be moving from one major segment of my life to another.

Interestingly, in the leavers assembly, I won an award. Now, I'm not usually the sort of person who'd typically be considered award worthy, but this wasn't just an award. It was a giant spoon. The award is called the Gadfly award, and according to Wikipedia, "Gadfly is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or attempt to stimulate innovation by proving an irritant." Hence the spoon, I guess. The term Gadfly has been used to describe a number of philosophers, politicians and others throughout history. But I think Stefan stated it most accurately, "I guess being annoying paid off!" A side effect of winning this award is that I've been invited to a dinner with the creator of the award. Certainly an interesting set of events. I guess this is some form of positive recongnition for being a pain in the ass. I certainly mean well by it ;)

On another note, I got my new Logitech G25 steering wheel for use with my Playstation 3. The steering wheel works great. The tables, on the other hand, did not work so well. I tried to use it at first without a table but naturally the thing spun itself around. Time for Plan B. I have an old desk like they have in hospitals that slides underneath the bed. While setting it up, I managed to shear off a bolt and bend a screw and it fell apart. Crap.... Plan C. I attached lots of coat hangers to it to try to stabilise it. I managed to use it to play it a bit, but every time I made a sharp left turn, the desk fell apart again. Plan D. I tried attaching some wooden legs to replace the ones I broke. I attached the steering wheel and... oh ho, it was so unbalanced it fell forward and into my lap due to the weight of the steering wheel.

Plan E is to design and construct a new desk from scratch. Hopefully I'll manage that tomorrow.

GST - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Unfortunately have to accept that Jersey's Goods and Services Tax is here to stay for the forseeable future. The GST means that local shops must now charge an extra 3% for their goods and services, and give it to the government. It came into force on the 6th of May 2008.

Earlier this year there was a debate as to whether this tax should be added at the till or added to the price tags, but it was decided to not make it mandatory to add it at the till. This made a lot of people worried that shops were going to start rounding up their prices, particularly on goods that cost less than £1, and keeping the rest as profit. For example, a can of coke which costs 70p, untaxed. 3% of 70p is 2.1p, but many shops may choose to charge 3p. Assuming you went to the shop and bought 1000 cans of coke for a party, you'd be paying £730, which works out to be about 4.2% extra. If it was added at the till, you'd only have been charged 3% extra on the total cost of the purchase. In this case, the total cost including GST would be £721. Obviously this is a fairly extreme example, but this affects people most when buying lots of cheap items, where it can increase the price by a further 1-2% ontop of GST.

The other thing on islanders minds was that we already typically get charged the price inclusive of mainland VAT, but retailers just keep it as profit. If you went down to your local newsagents before GST, you'd probably find you get charged the RRP on the front of magazines, despite that they are written to be inclusive of VAT. Islanders were worried that when GST came in, we'd effectively be paying both VAT and GST. That is, paying approximately 21% above the manufactured price, excluding added costs levied by retailers and resellers.

Now that GST has arrived, we can look back at these considerations and compare them with what happened in real life. Turns out, it was a very mixed bag.

The Good
Some retailers were already charging mostly local prices for their products, and not keeping huge profits from the VAT difference. These retailers added an extra 3% to their prices, and that goes to the government. Many of these retailers are also showing the GST on the reciept. While they are showing adjusted prices on the tags, they are also only charging the 3% GST on the total shopping bill rather than on each individual item.

The Bad
Some retailers were already charging VAT inclusive prices, and keeping it as profit. However, many of these companies, have decided to use this extra profit to absorb the added price of GST. Consumers are still paying more than they arguably should, but at least we're not paying any extra. Many of these companies haven't implemented a system to let them charge GST on the whole bill rather than each individual item.

By and large, companies fall in the first two categories. BBC News Jersey said that 75% of companies have absorbed the cost of GST, and the main retailers such as Co-Op and Checkers appear to fall into the first category. However, there is one final category.

The Ugly
Some shops, most notably corner shops, are effectively charging both VAT and GST on the purchases. The rStore line of shops have notices up around magazines and such saying "3% will GST be charged ontop of the cover price". These retailers are also charging 3% on each individual item, rather than the whole purchase. And there is a final consequence that was largely unpredicted. Many corner shops and petrol stations have used GST as an opportunity to unilaterally increase their prices far higher than the required 3%. Some petrol stations on the island put up their prices by more than 7%. Clearly, they are using GST as an excuse to increase prices, taking advantage of how most people expected prices to go up but weren't entirely sure what an acceptible price increase should have been.

What's Next?
We have no choice but live with it. We must advocate changes to the GST scheme, including zero-rate for basic foodstuffs, school books and children's clothing, and reduced rate for other non-luxuries. At least for the time being, it's very unlikely we will manage to get rid of the tax, but we might be able to make it a little more fair.

Website Updates

I've started the process of updating my personal site, cameronharris.org.

I'm trying to link together my "online presence"; that is, link together my accounts and profiles from other websites into what could be considered a sort of meta-profile. I've included a small profile section with the basic details, but nothing on the scale of something like a Facebook profile.

Lets hope what I've done doesn't count as a trademark violation :)

Samsung Spinpoint F1 + VIA VT6420

Note: I solved my problem. For the solution, look further down for the follow up.

Computers have shown themselves to be hideously over complex yet again. I bought a Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB SATA-300 hard drive (hd753lj). It failed. So, I got it returned, got another and then I tried to plug it into one of my media server computer's VIA VT6420 chipset SATA-150 headers, but it didn't work. The drive was fine, the cables were fine and the motherboard was fine, but it didn't all work together.

Turns out, the VT6420 doesn't support SATA-300. The drive is supposed to support auto-negotiation, but apparently that is "incompatible" with certain chipsets. It seems the VT6420 is one of them.

Samsung have a website, but it's written in some sort of molested form of English.

My mobility is very big, thanks for asking.

After hours of code cracking and deciphering, I worked out that they had some software you could download that should flash the hard drive to run in SATA-150 mode. I downloaded it, extracted it, burned it to a disk, booted said disk, ran the program, but it didn't detect my hard drive, and didn't flash it.

There's something on their page about jumpers but I haven't managed to work out what it means:

1. Patch File to be offered by Samsung electronics can change HDD's transmission mode 3.0Gbps to 1.5 Gbps compulsory.
2. Some models that are impossible to adjust the mode by the patch file can be controled to change the jumper pin.
- Target model : HD161JJ
**If you execute the patch file, you can see the Jumper method for the models which can not be adjusted by the patch file.

It seems to be saying some drives aren't compatible, but hasn't told me which ones, and I couldn't find any information about the "jumper method" in the patch.

Can't things just work? Couldn't Samsung have done whatever everyone else does and provided a jumper to force the drive to negotiate SATA-150 rather than a silly software flash that doesn't work on all motherboard and/or drives.

Edit (follow up): A lot of people seem to be getting to this page from Google, searching for answers to their Samsung/VIA woes. I managed to get my system working eventually, but it cost me a little bit of time and money. If you buy a cheap ~£10 PCI card based on the Via VT6421A chipset, the drive should be detected, and should work! But there's a catch. You need to be extremely careful what card you buy, as you can't boot your computer from most of them.

If, like me, you accidentally bought a non-bootable card, you could try to flash your BIOS (see note) to boot from them, but I couldn't work out how. Instead, I tried to boot from a cheap IDE drive plugged into the onboard controller, which worked initially, but the system kept crashing. Turns out that when using both chipsets together, lots of people run into incompatibility issues. I just disabled the onboard chipset entirely. Given that I run Linux, I managed to install it so that the bootable parts were stored on a USB pen drive and now I boot from that, while having the remainder of my system stored on the SATA drive. As far as I know, you can do similar things than Windows, but it might take some effort to make it work properly.

As always, with computers, your mileage may vary and I'm not responsible for broken computers, wasted time or wasted money. :)

Note: The link is supposedly for vt6410 chips, but I read on the net that the tip works for vt6421a if you do it right. I never managed to make it work, so I can't help with that. Sorry.

Youtube's different players

Most videos I find on YouTube are played in their good old fashioned standard dark grey player. The one that looks like this:


Now there is an option to try the new "beta" player, too. It's very similar except less curvy and more minimalist. That looks like this:

Every time I personally try to upload a video to YouTube, it appears as the first type, or the second type if you've selected that you want to try the beta version. However, I've noticed that the odd video seems to use a third type of player that looks a bit like a hybrid between both styles:

If a video has this player, there doesn't appear to be an option to choose the new beta player either, nor is there an option to choose the quality. I'm not sure if it respects the quality setting in your profile or not.

After a quick check of the source, I found that the first two types of players are /player2.swf and /swf/watch.swf. That's fine, and it's a choice so you know you're getting a different player. The latter type of player is /player_dcad.swf.

What does "dcad" mean and why is there a third type of player that appears to be used by very few videos in YouTube? It seems that every video in a given person's account is played by the dcad player, or every video is played by the normal player -- no account seems to mix between player types.

Are these users doing something inparticular to select a special type of player or is it just happening by chance? There doesn't seem to be a time correlation, as some new videos use the traditional/beta players, whereas others use the dcad player.

You can view the swf files at the following URLs:

• Normal player: http://youtube.com/player2.swf
• Beta player: http://youtube.com/swf/watch.swf
• "dcad" player: http://youtube.com/player_dcad.swf

Curiously, there is also another player at http://youtube.com/player.swf which I assume is some very old version of the YouTube player.

Ways for Sony to improve the Playstation 3

The Playstation 3 has given me many hours of fun; hours that I should have spent revising for my exams. Nevertheless it has some problems and a lot of potential for improvement.

1. MP4 Streaming
   Fix MP4 streaming playback on the 40GB PS3. When most movies in your library are in MP4 format, it makes the PS3 far less useful as a media centre device.
   (Update 3/10/2009 - Fixed on my console now)
   
2. In game XMB
   Such as being able to access the friends features.
   (Update 5/7/2008 - This has been implemented, though not very well yet)
   (Update 3/10/2009 - Implementation has improved considerably but is still fundamentally limited given that video games take most of the memory)
   
3. Custom game music
   Sony should work with game developers to allow in-game music to be replaced by any music the PS3 can play (stored locally or over the network). It'd probably be best if integrated to the in-game XMB, with the menu item Music -> Game music set by default.
   (Update 5/7/2008 - This has been implemented, though doesn't support network yet)
   (Update 3/10/2009 - Apparently lack of network is due to patents)
   
4. Storage manager
   At the moment I've got a very small amount of hard drive space left, despite having no media and very little "game data" saved to the console. I can only assume the space is used on downloaded patches and content, even for games I no longer own. Unfortunately there seems no way to view, back up, delete or move what's taking this space.
   
5. Better patch downloading
   Make it possible to download game patches in the background while playing other games. What'd be even better is if you could "subscribe" to games and the patches/free content would automatically download while playing other games, without you even having to ask.
6. Download mode
   A mode (or modes) in-between standby and fully turned on, where the graphics and most of the Cell SPUs are off or in power saving mode, but plugged in controllers still charge and downloads still run in the background. After the charging and downloads are complete, the console could turn off fully, perhaps briefly waking up every 12 hours or so to check for new downloads. The console could also cache things like the PS Store images during this time.
   
7. Controller power saving
   Automatic power-off for controllers after a sane period of inactivity, for example 30 minutes.
   (Update 3/10/2009 - This has been implemented exactly as described)
   
8. In-game user switching
   Make it so that you can change what user profile is logged in while in the middle of playing a game through the in-game XMB.
9. Player associated profiles
   Should two people be playing on the same console via local multiplayer, for example in Warhawk, the second player should be able to select a second profile to use on the local console, optionally with an associated PSN ID. No more MyPsnId(1), MyPsnId(2).
   (e.g. Fred comes to my house, I create a Warhawk match, he presses "Start", clicks "Create new profile", inputs his PSN ID and password. He now has an account on my PS3 as well as being logged in to his PSN account so he can use his own online ranks and customisations. This is also useful for co-op games where save-games, and in the future, accomplishments, could be linked on both profiles rather than on just one.)
   (Update 3/10/2009 - This has been implemented in most recent games featuring local multiplayer such as LittleBigPlanet. Naturally it's a game-dependent feature, but I wish Sony would force developers to implement it)
   
10. Online profiles
    As an extension of the above idea, the ability to dual-store your entire PS3 profile online so that you can use them on a friend's console would be useful. Hell, why have local-only profiles at all unless you have no internet? Just make it so that the login screen displays recently used/selected online profiles and can run offline (like the roaming profiles concept in Windows networking).
    (e.g. Fred comes to my house, brings GTA IV with him, starts up my PS3, and on the log in screen clicks "Use PSN ID" rather than selecting a local account, types his PSN ID/Password then he's logged in using a sort of online-stored profile and can access all the game saves he has at home. When he goes back home, the new game saves are downloaded back to the console and it's as if he never left)
11. Home
    Actually bring out Home with accomplishments and trophies, finally.
    (Update 5/7/2008 - trophies are here)
    (Update 3/10/2009 - home is here, but is still a bit rubbish)
    

Gun Control in the UK

For most of my life I've believed in gun control. Over the last couple weeks, I've changed my mind. Besides the fact that gun crime figures have increased four-fold since the UK brought in stricter gun control laws, I find it tips the balance of power too far against law abiding citizens.

Most of the gun control laws are brought in as an emotional knee-jerk reaction to some high profile killing -- such as The Dunblane Massacre. As horrible as that event was, only seventeen people were killed. Not much in the grand scheme of things.

You could argue that guns are only made for killing other people, so there is no non-sporting reason to own one. Unfortunately this isn't true since other people are always going to break the law. It just so happens that in the case of gun crime, a gun is the only adequate personal protection against guns. Similar to how if someone tries to beat you up, the best defence is being able to fight back. Convicted criminals have even testified that they prefer an unarmed population to an armed population. If you look at America, the controlled states have higher levels of gun crime than the uncontrolled states, and most shootings occur in gun-free zones like schools.

The UK can try to ban guns but criminals will always manage to get their hands on them as long as they're being produced anywhere in the world. Consequently, all that happens is we end in a situation where only the military, police and criminals have guns. Should someone break into your house at night, you'd better hope they don't try to kill you. In fact, we'd also be defenseless in the case of a military uprising. I don't think we should be as extreme as to allow unregulated purchase of weapons without licenses. A background check and cooldown period could be implemented, as well as registration of ammo and guns, but I don't think gun control laws are helping us as much as the government would like you to think.