Transhumanism without implants, and other links

[mindstalk]

March 2007 Wired article. Starts with a guy who wore a feelSpace belt of vibrating pads, the pad closest to north vibrating. He got to the point of even dreaming with a constant sense of direction. Then talks about older news (to me), of vision for the blind -- first rods on someone's back, then electrodes on the tongue. Use of electrodes or vibrators to give a better sense of balance, for those with vertigo, or for pilots, where visual cues aren't all that good. What would be really impressive is if anyone conveyed a sense of color through tactile interfaces...

* Essay on how training affects thinking, and lawyer/politician thinking vs. scientist/engineer thinking. Habit of modeling the world with numbers, vs. habit of suspicion of flexible numbers and concern with manipulating poeple's perception of and reactions to the world.

* Someone walked out with a communion wafer; some Catholic outraged, calling it a hate crime, or holding the body Christ hostage, or death threats.

* Berlusconi wants a wafer despite being divorced and remarried.
* Disco dwarves
* Calls in Israel to punish the families of terrorists.
* Really expensive day care at Google
* Chris Hitchens experiences waterboarding, agrees that it constitutes torture.
* How we stand up for our torture pals in Eastern Europe.