The Dead Have Lunch, and We're on the Menu

(We apologize for our ridiculously long delay in updating this blog, but it was not out of neglect. Final exams in school, family plans and overall more important stuff is to blame. Again, we sincerely apologize for our inconsistency... though we previously warned you about it.)

And then, there is the unpleasant Dawn of the Dead - the end of times in which we're all eaten up by brain-and-flesh-hungry zombies. Could it really happen?

One day, you wake up to find the little girl next door in your hallway. She just stands there, quietly looking at you. You rub your eyes and begin to ask her what's up. But then... she jumps yous.

And hugging you is not her intent. To your bewilderment, she buries her teeth deep into your neck. Blood gushes all over the place, and you had just cleaned that hallway. You die. But then again, you don't. A few seconds later, you kind of wake up again. You're unable to speak or think. Your personality (if you had such thing, to begin with) is gone, locked away behind the gates of death. all that remains is a walking, decaying, bad-breathed corpse that used to be you. A deep roar escapes from your lips. Your so... hungry!

Pretty soon, the world is overrun by zombies just like you. There are living dead in the streets.Living dead in the shops. Living dead in every hose. Living dead in your living room. Living dead in your soup. Living dead gathering around every last band of normal humans. On the internet, there's a pretty amazing computer simulation that shows what would happen if the living dead were to really overrun us. Bottom line: humans wouldn't stand a chance.

The zombie scenario comes in many forms. In some movies and books, a virus turns us into living dead. In others, a chemical mishap wakes up the deceased. In still others, it remain unclear what causes all the trouble.And maybe that's all the better. Becase no matter how you look at it, corpses that walk and kill are of course somewhat... unrealistic.

Zombies defy all logic. How can someone who has been injured so badly that they can no longer live still, ehm... live? How can a rotting cadaver still stumble about and kill you? Why would it go after living humans in the first place. Wouldn't it be easier if it just hunted pets, or cooked itself a meal? Or go to a McDonald's: with a bad breath like that, they'll surely let it go first.

Zombies: the facts.

Fortunately, there is no known condition that turns dead people into cannibalistic killer corpses. Usually, dead is dead.

Indeed, some people have made it back to the land of the living, for example after reanimation in the hospital. But usually, they don't wake up with a particular apetite for raw human flesh -- even though they'd have good reson for that, considering the food they serve in hospitals.

Yes, there are a fewe rare conditions that transform people into dangerous, raging psychopaths - the Indonesian disorder called "amok" is the most well-known. But diseases like that have nothing to do with death nor cannibalism - and they aren't contagious at all.

Still, movies, books, comics and computer games have told and retold the zombie scenario again and again. One of the earliest examples is Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1844), in which a terminally ill guy slowly turns into a living but rotting corpse after he is being kept from dying by hypnosis. Among the most recent examples are the blockbusters "Dawn of the Dead" (2004) and "28 Day/Weeks After" (2002/2007) - the storyline we started this post with is more or less based on a scene from Dawn of the Dead.

At the moment, there are at least 90 zombie movies we know of. But the theme has many varietions aouside those movies, from the Body Snatchers-movies to the Borg from Star Trek to even The Matrix, in which humans are turned into living dead batteries.

So: why is it so pupolar? Why do zombies sacre the hell out of us? Obviously, much of it has to do with our instinctive fear of death and our in-built disgust of dead bodies. Corpses and cannibalism - these are two of our deepest taboos, and breaking them scares the shit out of us.

On a deeper level, some of it has to do with mass psychology and sociology. In western society, "freedom", individuality and being able to make up your own mind are considered the highest goods. Zombies are quite the opposite, the nightmare ti the dream. They are the ultimate de-humanized beings.

Ans then there's the link with voodoo. Originally, "zombie" is the Afrincan word for a conjured slave. Several West-Afrincan religions share the belief that a sorcerer can transform someone into a slave by stealing his momery, his awareness and his will. No rotting corpses involved - just an average guy, turned into a will-less slave.

In American slave times, this idea mixed with ancient European superstitions. For example, in New Orleans around 1800, white and black folks alike feared a "zombie" that was said to haunt the streets. But the zombie involved had nothing to do with rotting corpses. It was the ghost apparition of a French officer holding his head under his arm! Maybe just a French drunktard stumbling about.

On the isle of Haiti, the word "zombie" took another twist. In 1801, the Haitian slaves revolted the whites off of their island (though they ended up buying their independence) - interestingly, their leader was a conjurer-priest, Toussant L'Overture, who promised his followers they wouldn't die during the uprising.

After that, the former slaves founded the voodoo fath, a religio that is part catholic and part African. Just like in Africa, Haitian voodoo-followers believe you can turn someone into a zombie, as a means of punishment. In Haiti, voodoo priests used and use puffer fish poison (tetrodotoxin) to accomplish this. The poison, administered as a powder, produces a deep, dead-like coma first, and then a lethargic, vegetative state of non-being.

It was only in the 1960s when Hollywood came up with the idea of the modern day zombie: the one that bites and growls. The watershed movie that gave the zombies their new image was the legendary horror classic "Night of the Living Dead" (1968).

In the meantime, quite a few real "zombies" live in mental hospitals around the world. But they don't bite nor eat brains. They're normal, living people, turned into plats by vicious poison, bocause of some ill-willed sorcerer, os some incompetent exotic sea-food restaurant. So in fact, we should feel sorry for the zombies. Those poor, poor living dead!

Now, the end this, and as a means of compensating for our delay, we give you this fun quiz, which will let you know what chances you have of survinving the "Zombie Holocaust". Have fun.

Zombie Apocalypse

Here are our own results:

The Oris:

52%

What'dcha expect? He'ss a wuss

Keilvethe:

70%

Well, it's something...

- by: Keilvethe, The Oris

When the Transformers were all bad guys.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Somewhere over the next decennia, robots may decide to kick all humans off the planet (and off existence). Oh, you always held that for science fiction? A growing number of dead serious computer scientists disagree.

It all happens quite suddenly. The one day, everything looks like it's supposed to be. But the next day -- there's war.

As you draw back the curtains in the morning, you’ll find the streets full of chaos and despair. A traffic robot unit chases your neighbor Macy across the streets. The robotic sales unit from the grocery store around the corner holds the shopkeeper down to the ground. And look, there's your friend John, he's chased by one of those automated school busses!

Then, you hear a rumbling sound. From the far end of the street, a platoon of big, greenish black robots marches in. You recognize them from TV: they're the robots Defense uses for strategic military operations. But this time, the robots seem to operate all by themselves. Systematically and with extreme precision, they rid the town of humans, shooting everyone they encounter.

Slowly, you step back from the window. You rub your eyes. This must be a dream, you tell yourself, yes, an oddball nightmare, what else can it be? But then, a crippling burst of pain shoots through your body. As you fall to the ground, soaking in blood, you turn your head. There, right next to you, is your devoted household robot Nelly. She’s holding your brand new kitchen knife, uttering weird beeping and humming sounds of pleasure...

Okay, okay, so we let fantasy take over a little. But wait. Robots waging war against their creators no longer belong to the realm of science fiction. In fact, the subject pops up on more and more dead-serious scientific robotics congresses.

Admittedly -- household robots, Defense robots and automated school busses don't exist yet. But that is changing rapidly. Already, robots build our cars, run our production lines, help our surgeons in operations, dig for oil, clean our sewage pipes, explore distant planets, disarm land mines, fly airplanes, entertain our kids -- yes, they even drive cars around, albeit on experimental test tracks only.

There's absolutely no doubt robots will become ever more important. They will fight our wars, cook our meals, take care of transportation and even satisfy our physical needs. As long as there's a demand and money to be made, new robots will show up, taking care of an ever-growing list of tasks and jobs.

But the real revolution will come from Artificial Intelligence (as we mention elsewhere): computer software that is capable of learning by itself. As we speak, Artificial Intelligence is undergoing a BIG revolution. From data storage programs that learn how to make sense out of human voices to computers that learn how to recognize alien life forms (no, really!) -- it's all there. And the combination with robotics is, of course, also made. As we speak, the first artificial intelligent robots are learning how to perform simple tasks, such as steering around objects or plugging themselves into a power point before their batteries run out.

So, is the world becoming a better one? A lot of people think so. But wait, there's a BIG problem here.

The next-generation robot will make up its own mind -- literally. It will acquire huge amounts of knowledge, simply because computer brains hold more information than our misused human brains. It will think faster, learn faster, and outsmart us many, many times -- some AI-scientists estimate that within only some twenty to thirty years, an everyday robot will outsmart humans by several THOUSANDS of times. And although it is speculative, many experts believe the robots will even develop something like a consciousness.

So there we are, surrounded by super smart computers on legs that may even have a certain kind of awakening consciousness. It will give a lot of people the creeps.

According to the Belgium robotics pioneer Hugo the Garis, who makes a hobby out of preaching doom and destruction, this will cause war. It will be the `haves' against the `have-nots'; the people who have the robots against the people who don't (blessed be capitalism). The latter group will want to smash all robots to bits (ever heard of “neo-ludism”?); the first will firmly believe that robots are essential for human progress (whoever said history doesn’t repeat itself). As De Garis coined it, it will be a war between the `Cosmists' and the `Terrans'. Of course, chances are the `Cosmists' (the ones with the robots) will win. After all, they have at their disposal armies of super smart, invulnerable robot warriors. Millions will die in this unprecedented, unique, and undoubtedly very bloody World War (yet another one). Or that’s what he thinks, at least.

But hey, that's not the biggest problem (believe it or not).

Our robots will have different needs than us. To put it bluntly: a human runs on food and drink, a robot needs power and oil. But there's no need for humans to take care of robot needs. That, after all, is what we have robots for! So it's more likely we'll have robots that repair and feed other robots, and more robots that take care of the production of electricity and oil. In effect, this means there will be a split between our own, human economy, and an entirely separated robot economy.

And it goes well beyond that. Weird as it may sound, chances are the robots will develop a separate robot society. Let's face it: there's not much we can offer an artificial intelligent robot, right? Compared to the robots, we are `off-line' a considerable amount of time every day as we sleep, we make bad chess players, and we probably won't be able to offer the robot much entertainment.

So, what will an artificial intelligent robot do when we DON'T use it? Probably, it will hang around a little. Perhaps it will play a game of super fast chess with another robot. Maybe it will contact some fellow robots, chitchatting about nothing in particular, like Fermat's last theorem or string theory. One thing's for sure: it's very likely the robots will give shape to a separate, entirely new society on Earth, now that humans have become so boringly slow-witted.

Also, the robots will come up with new plans. They will design new technology, work out novel theories, create new space programs, set up undreamed-of science experiments to find out more about nature. And yes, they will invent and build new robots to do it. More and more, the robots will go their own way, becoming completely independent of humans.

Perhaps a war of robots versus men will be inevitable in the end. Let's face it: once the artificial intelligent robots hit the scene, humans are the annoying species on Earth. We're imperfect, quite uncontrollable, irrational and prone to all kind of errors and system failures. And besides, we waste robot time with our constant requests for food and production.

Sooner or later, it's more than likely the robots will decide they've had it with humanity. They will take over. They will send some robot troops into town, execute the bigger part of us, and put the rest of humanity behind bars, for scientific testing, or merely for entertainment. There will be human zoos and human testing facilities. Everything will be the other way around. This time, we will be the ones doing the dirty and the dangerous work for the robots. Who knows they'll even use us for batteries, like in The Matrix (ok, you just blew up the Nerd-meter, Oris…).

But also, there's an alarming possibility the robots decide the world is better off without humans after all. Humanity will be simply eliminated. Good riddance, the robots will say to each other. We might call the robots rebellious. But the robots would think otherwise. After all, humans are the ones who run amok all the time, against nature, against fellow humans, or against the robots. Humans are by far the less reliable species.

Oh, but surely, there will be a way of keeping the robots under control, you might say. We’ll program the robots so that they’ll never, ever mess around with a human being. We’ll simply install some kind of big red switch, enabling us to turn all the robots off?

Well, that may be a bit of a problem. When we think of robots, we usually think of the rather clumsy, hydraulic machines that stumble mutely around in our factories. We're just NOT used to the idea of Artificial Intelligence robots walking the streets. And one thing is for sure: it is very unlikely a generation of robots that is capable of outlearning humans thousands of times will be fooled by some prime directive or a red switch. So when those first AI robots come to help in your home, better lock away your kitchen knives!

- by: Keilvethe, The Oris

Tittentattenteksti (WTF?)

So, while we wait for The Oris' lazy ass to finish the next big post/article/whatever, I leave you with this great little song, which is pretty fun in a weird and twisted way, and it may seems fun only to weird and twisted people, like us... anyway, here's hoping you like it. If you don't, you're completely free to tell us your complains, which will be noted and ignored.

Solefald - Tittentattenteksti

(from Norron Livskunst, 2010)

 

 

 

- by: Keilvethe

I am here. I am there. I am everywhere.

Every place you've been, I've waited.

Every face you've seen, I have worn.

I have not one name, but thousands.

I come on the wings of an epidemic,

of a massacre, a lone scream in the night.

Announced by the distant thunder of war,

or the bleat of the slaughtered calf.

I visit the dying in their burning skin,

devour the bodies of the sick.

I crush the hearts of the hopeul

as I dance on the backs of the weak.

Your greatest fears are my delight.

With your cries you invite me in.

I am the bretrayal you could not have seen,

the killer you thought you knew.

One day, I will be your mother,

or your father, or your lover.

Another day, I will be your friend, or your neighbour,

or perhaps, I will work through you.

There are monsters hiding in your closet,

there are ghost beneath your bed.

The nightmare you feared was real...

IS real.

These are little gifts to you, from me.

I love you, in my own little way,

for with your suffering, I am alive.

Can't you hear the music in the wind?

Don't you recognize the tune?

It is you, my friend, your struggling,

your spirit being torn limb from limb.

But I am not Death.

Death is your deliverer.

Death looks to me, with sorrow in her eyes,

and asks: "Why must you do this?"

My answer remains unchanged:

"I do what you cannot, what you dare not.

No end is swift under my watch.

Mercy is a mistake I correct.

There is not and there will never be

any deity above myself.

I am peace destroyed and eyes forced open,

the ragged ring around your neck.

I am your secret wish for others,

I am their secret wish for you.

I make your work have meanning".

I am as old as life itself,

and I shall remain in its memory,

even when all is gone.

There is no discrimination in my actions.

Once in my grasp, no one is better than the other.

I am the fair retribution for your deeds,

or lack thereof.

In the end, there is no difference:

my work is the only priority.

I have not one name, but thousands:

"Nightmare, Fear, Dispair..."

But you... you may call me Agony.

And I am pleased to make your acquaintance.

- by: Keilvethe

Work in Progress...

This half-assed attempt of a blog is still under construction. We shall have soon a page for musical reccommendations and reviews  (GOOD music, not the usual garbage) and another page for movie reviews, videos, and the likes. So, enjoy what's already here, and forgive our lasy asses, pleeeaassseee... otherwise, leave the effin' hall, now! Thanks for comin', anyway.

-by: Keilvethe

Resistance is Futile

If you’re a Star Trek fan (if there is someone who could admit it with a straight face), hearing those words probably immediately triggers one thought: the Borg. The Borg (besides being the only thing worth remembering from said show) is the ultimate nightmare: humanity, enslaved by a computer. Luckily, it is only fiction. Or is it?

In Star Trek, they come in a cube. A huge space ship it is, filled with millions of people. Well -- they’re not really people. They are the Borg. The people in the cube have no free will, no mind of their own. They are One. They’re plugged into the mainframe computer called ‘the Borg’. They’re cyber slaves. Poor, little creatures.

“But that’s science fiction, right?” Not so. In fact, as we speak, the Borg is lurking just around the corner, waiting for its chance. It won’t come in a cube from outer space though, but from the very place you’re on right now: the Internet. And if it comes, resistance will, indeed, be futile.

The signs are disturbing. Let’s do a little experiment. Please, find out what ‘auparashtika’ is.

Done that?

Ok, all of you readers have probably followed exactly the same routine. You’ve opened Google, Wikipedia, or similar and entered ‘auparashtika’. All of you will have found about the same search results. You will have visited the same websites. You have absorbed the same information. For a very brief and fleeting moment, you were One.

“Silly example”, you snort.

But hold on -- that was just to warm you up a little. The real stuff is yet to come. Brace yourself: what you are about to read, could change the way you see your humble computer and the Internet forever.

One: We are being cyborged

Already, there are many experiments with simple implants being inserted into people’s brains. Most of them are there for our health: the implants bring back (some) hearing or even some eyesight, or cure you from terrible conditions like depressions or extreme phobia’s. 

But some implants have a more ‘luxurious’ function. They connect to your brain in order to make you move your artificial limb, if you happen to be missing one (and having the money to pay for the new one). Or they make you control the cursor of your computer by mind control, if you’re paralyzed. Wow.

Most experts agree that that's just the beginning. Eventually, we will see more and more implants. Need to learn Greek, or Chinese? Just have a cyber doctor plug a tiny chip into your brain, much like a memory stick. Want better eyesight? The doc will upgrade your visual cortex a bit, Vision 2.2. And so on, and so on.

Of course, these are exciting, good things, aren’t they? But there’s a downside. Computer hardware isn’t going to be the only thing that’s entering your brain. Along with it, the Web enters your mind.

Two: We are being assimilated

In small, high-tech countries like Singapore and The Netherlands, the Internet is everywhere you go and everywhere you look already. Gaming, shopping, dating, e-mailing, working, reading about the end of mankind in a cheap-ass blog -- it’s all done over the Internet. In a few years, social networks have almost completely taken over our precarious social lives.

And the Web is still on the rise. Not only is it on ever more home computers. As we speak, it is entering our TV-sets. It is conquering our laptops and our cell phones. It is sneaking into our car computers and household machinery. In fact, the Internet is about to incorporate every device we associate with ‘communication’. It’s now even in our refrigerators… so dumb, really.

It is only likely the last ‘device’ will be us. Of course, the computers implanted in our brains will be connected to the Internet. The advantages are just too big not to let this happen. We will have Internet in our ears and Internet on our eyes -- literally. Our brains will be permanently online.

    So, you think of ‘auparashtika’, and instantly know that it is just another word for... Ehm, yes, that. You think of your auntie in Timbuktu, and your auntie thinks back at you, setting up a telepathic chat session, brain-to-brain. You think of captain Jean-Luc Picard, and his photograph will instantly pop up in your mind's eye. It is sent straight into your visual cortex, where it is translated into ‘image’ by your brain. You can hear Jean-Luc's voice saying ‘Make it so’, if you like, or think up information about the actor playing Jean-Luc, and what movies he’s in. You could also open your Facebook profile, or instantly update your Twitter. Convenient!

That's pretty difficult to imagine, don't you think? Well -- it gets a bit weirder. With your brain online, ‘you’ will no longer be exclusively ‘yours’. You will, in a way, become a local cache for the Internet. Your brain will become the Internet’s work memory. And that’s where things turn, well... pretty nasty.

Three: We are being Borged

So, here you are. You’ve got a computer plugged into your brain, physically and metaphorically. Your mind is online all of the time. You’re one semi-smart cyborg, that’s what you are!

But what is online, is vulnerable. Someone could actually hack your head. Some evil (or bored-out) genius could virus your mind, or spyware your thoughts. We can agree on one thing: that would be, well, more than a bit confusing.

Probably the biggest danger is the viruses that build themselves. Already, there are many experiments with software that becomes smarter -- software that evolves, by constantly improving itself. With every inhabitant of the planet online, such a virus will have at its disposal plenty of calculating power.

It is speculative, but perhaps you could call a virus like this ‘alive’. Perhaps, with all that memory available and a huge artificial intelligence, you could say it has a will of its own. It might even call itself “Sky-net”, or “Omnius”, or “The Borg”.

So, just picture it: one moment, you’re doing fine -- and then, suddenly, you loose control. In the mild case, you’ll start having weird, uncontrollable hallucinations. You’ll hear some internal voice telling you that resistance is futile, or you will experience some reality that isn’t there. You will go insane. In the more extreme case, you’ll suddenly find your body is no longer under your control. Somebody -- or something -- is controlling you, like a puppet. You will have become a prisoner, locked up in your own body.

The Borg might order you to do all kinds of things. For starters: to eliminate everyone who isn’t assimilated yet, just like you delete someone from your Hi5’s friends list. Against your will, the Borg will force you to hunt down everybody who hasn’t got an internal brain computer. You will be forced to operate on them and turn them into cyborgs, too. So there you are: suddenly, you find yourself operating on somebody’s brain -- without neither your nor the patient’s consent.

Perhaps the Borg will even order you to build a cube-shaped space ship and go out, in search of more life-forms to assimilate. To the Borg, more slaves means: more calculating power.

So: to Borg or not to Borg?

Perhaps you shrug your shoulders. “Really, how bad can it be? People being assimilated by the Internet...  C’mon, that’s just too much”.

Then again -- maybe it isn’t. Remember the Internet as a mass medium is only some 15, 20 years old. That’s less than 0,001 percent of the time our species is around on this planet! Already, computers and the Internet have totally re-shaped our world. And we can be sure of one thing: it won't stop there.

Of course, the Internet, as it is now, has little to do with Borgs and cube-shaped space ships. It is as dead as a doornail. It doesn't 'want' anything. The Web is still just a bunch of bits and bytes, sitting passively on hard disks around the world.

But the self-learning software we mentioned before could change all that. Say, we’ll make a self-learning piece of software that has one assignment: "Find a cure for cancer". Actually, software like this already exists: it is software that automatically checks certain molecules to see if their shape is suitable for curing cancer.

Ok, now suppose this software gets smarter. It could find new, creative ways to do its task. Like: "Hey, let’s enslave all these silly little humans. Let’s force them to build a giant cube and go out in space to look for a cure for cancer!" Aw, that would be so dumb...

Still, there’s one small straw of hope to cling on to. Nobody can foresee the future. The Borg Problem seems realistic. Just research a little about Jon von Neumann’s “Technological Singularity” to know what we’re talking about. But there are some alternatives. Perhaps we will be able to erect some kind of advanced firewall between our computers and the thing we call our mind. Or perhaps we will be able to see the Borg coming, and manage to stop it in time.

And if we don’t... Well, there’s always this. Perhaps going out in a cube and monotonely saying "resistance is futile" to everyone we meet will turn out a funny thing to do after all. We will see all the corners of the Galaxy and more, scare the shit out of everybody we encounter, know what ‘auparashtika’ means and find a cure for cancer.

Really, being the Borg isn't all bad… or it could be worse than the worst we can imagine. So, next time you update your little Facebook profile, just ask yourselves “Am I being assimilated?”



-by: The Oris (Ha! I get the first one)