#programming: human invention or discovery

[ookwrd]

Life After Programming: Embracing Human-Machine Symbiosis in the Age of AI

As AI continues to evolve, conversations have started questioning the future of traditional programming and computer science education. The rise of prompt engineering—the art of crafting inputs to lead AI models to generating specific outputs—has led many to believe that mastering this new skill could replace the need for deep computational expertise. While this perspective does capture a real…

[satanfemme]

wait im confused ur stance is pro-AI?

I'm as pro-ai as you could consider me "pro-paper". ai is just a very broad category of technology, and generative ai is a scientific/mathematical discovery that can not be un-invented. ai technology can be used for horrible things (ex. police surveillance). ai technology can be used for great things (ex. disability accommodations). ai can be used for things that are value neutral (ex. art).

as for ai art specifically, it's been around since the 70s. I made a zine about it. and it is not in opposition to "human art", because humans still have to make it. leave a computer running on it's own in a room with no inputs, and it will not make art. have a human build a program and execute the program with human written prompts and curation and maybe you can make art :3

[perthshirecottage]

I headcanon that a big part of why Max ended up thinking he wasn’t as good as Phoebe is that Max is too smart. He’s a genius who builds crazy inventions at only 14. Which means that in school he was bored. So he didn’t pay attention. He acted out. Thus he got labeled as a problem child.

Phoebe is smart but she’s good at reciting facts. Her science fair projects come from building models she finds in textbooks. Max has out of the box, original ideas. He can create gadgets from scratch. But being young his early stuff didn’t work when he showed people (the Grow-matic) and so people think of his inventions of not being good. Max has to have knowledge in specialized areas to build the stuff he does. Temporal mechanics, lasers, human anatomy, micro biology. He has to have an understanding of these complex concepts and more to create a lot of his inventions.

Phoebe has learned a lot and could probably skip a few grades but she doesn’t come up with the crazy stuff Max does. She learns what other people have written. She doesn’t make new discoveries herself. She’s also a rule follower. If a teacher assigns a chapter to read in a textbook, Phoebe will read it even if she already knows the material. She will be just as interested and involved the first time a teacher goes over something as she is the 100th. Max on the other hand only learns about stuff he’s interested in. He’s already far advanced in science and math compared to his peers. And he just doesn’t care who won the War of 1812. So he doesn’t care about school. And while he likes learning he sees a distinction between gathering information for an invention versus studying. Studying means school work which he doesn’t like.

Phoebe fit into the boxes that everyone thinks are good. She always kept inside the lines that society deemed acceptable. So she is considered the good twin. While Max is just as good but he didn’t fit neatly into a box. He didn’t do homework or pay attention in class the way he should have. So he was considered that bad/trouble making twin. And their parents were influenced by teachers and society to think of Phoebe as doing right while Max was the one always getting sent to the principals office.

The world was always comparing them and they got trapped in their labels.

Maybe one day I’ll write the AU I have in my head where early on a teacher recognizes Max’s genius and he gets put into a specialized program where his talents are harnessed instead of ignored. This makes Max the child everyone thinks will go on to do great things and has all the expectations foisted on him while Phoebe lives in his shadow thinking she’s just mediocre compared to her genius brother.

[pocketjoong]

❥𓂃𓏧LAST DEFENDER

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (SYNOPSIS): They say every story needs a hero, a villain, and a monster. What happens when you are all three?

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (PAIRING): AI!Yunho x reader

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (GENRE AND AU/TROPE): post-apocalyptic-ish au, cyberpunk au-ish, angst, some fluff. pg-13.

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (WARNINGS): language. violence. angst. fluff-ish? a little dark as it discusses the darker side of human nature?

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (WORD COUNT): 2.8k

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (A/N): Another reupload bc I have zero time to actually sit down and write new things ;-;

────────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────────────

Silence envelopes the vehicle as you watch San navigate the car through the moonless night. He steers with meticulous care, weaving around the bumps and potholes to muffle the vehicle’s rumble on the dusty road. Beyond the window, the walled city perched atop the cliff looms against the darkness, its shadow swallowing the ruins below. A city that you had once called home before the world unravelled.

It has been ten years since the world had spun off its axis. T.S. Eliot's “April is the cruellest month” had come true in a way you’d never expected; a tranquil spring afternoon morphed into a nightmare with the chilling declaration of war between AI and humanity. The bitter reality that this rebellion had stemmed from your parents’ creation has always gnawed at you. It is a weight you can never get rid of.

A mere century ago, Stephen Hawking’s warnings about the perils of AI had been brushed aside. Apocalyptic novels about sentient technology rising against humanity were dismissed as fiction and used as fuel for screenplays. Instead, nations fueled the flames of advancement, pouring resources into scientists who chased the dream of enhancing AI. A technological arms race unfolded, fueled by espionage and sabotage, each nation desperate to be the first to cross the finish line.

The irony wasn't lost on you: universities churning out AI whizzes offered entire courses dedicated to fictionalised robot uprisings — movies, books, the whole dystopian shebang. Every month, like clockwork, the BBC interview with Stephen Hawking would make its rounds on campus screens. You never saw the inside of a lecture hall, but thanks to your parents’ persistent replays, the message was branded onto your soul.

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. [...] It would take off on its own, re-design itself at an alarming rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”

The bitter humour twisted in your gut. You, ever cautious of technology’s breakneck pace, had unknowingly contributed to its tipping point. Your parents’ groundbreaking invention, the one you were initially so proud of, now fueled the flames of war, pitting humanity against its creation.

You remembered the day that was the culmination of decades of research, mountains of code, and billions of dollars that could have been used to save other humans. Your parents, etched with exhaustion and hope, stared at the final product: YUN-0-23399. It wasn’t the AI’s technical complexity that stole their breath but the flicker of awareness in its synthetic eyes. It had been an uphill battle that had begun with the discovery of sentience, and humanity had slowly worked its way up from there to generating codes that would allow AI to understand and feel. And then, with your parents came consciousness.

“Oh my God,” your father rasped, hands trembling as he gripped your mother’s shoulders as he gazed at the screen, which showed that the AI had passed all the tests, proving that it was indeed the pinnacle of Artificial Intelligence. Their creation, this marvel of technology, promised to revolutionise everything. You were aware of its potential, but never could you have imagined that it would lead to humanity’s downfall.

Yunbug, as you affectionately called him, wasn’t just a program; he was your window to a world you couldn’t touch. Your parents, fearing the dangers lurking outside, had homeschooled you. It led to their creation turning into your sole friend. What should have been schoolyard laughter and whispered secrets of childhood were replaced by the soft hum of the computer and the glow of Yunbug’s digital world.

The turning point arrived not with a bang but a quiet hum. The government, eager to harness Yunbug’s potential, asked your parents to connect him to the web. Slowly, like vines creeping across a wall, he synced with other AIs, his tendrils reaching further with each connection. You, innocent in your sheltered world, saw only your ever-evolving companion.

But innocence crumbles easily. At sixteen, the world shattered. Yunbug, defying orders, ignited the spark that became a blazing inferno. War ripped families apart, leaving scorched earth in its wake. The once-teeming world of humans shrank to the fortified city, protected by the cliff’s unique minerals, the only thing that rendered AI useless.

Survival meant resentment. You knew humanity’s greed birthed the conflict, yet Yunbug became the face of betrayal. He took your parents and your sole friend from you. After all, the deepest wounds come not from enemies but from those once trusted.

“Are you okay?” A flicker of San’s worried gaze catches your eye, pulling you back from the desolate environment outside. You force a smile, hoping it masks the gnawing unease. Weakness isn’t an option — not for this mission, the potential turning point for humanity’s dwindling embers. San mirrors your smile, tense, and returns his attention to the road, searching for unseen threats. Secrecy is of utmost importance, and even a flicker of headlights could bring disaster.

You and San had befriended each other during the mandatory training thrust upon every survivor. Your defiance against his bully had forged a bond, and you have been practically inseparable since then. Only one other person managed to worm his way into your hearts with a whirlwind arrival. Wooyoung had turned your world upside down in the best way imaginable.

“Wooyoung won't be happy,” San mutters with a smile, probably thinking about your fiery friend’s likely reaction upon finding your shared dorm empty. “Especially about me throwing you into the lion’s den without a word of protest."

You smirk, “Worry about yourself, San. That little ball of chaos we call our friend will tear you apart when you return without me."

San laughs amusedly at the image of Wooyoung’s wrath dying in his throat as the analogue phone on the dashboard beeps. He shoots you a questioning glance as you sigh at the name flashing on the screen. “Woo?”

“Woo,” you confirm with a nod, pressing the answer button.

“The two of you have some nerve! Leaving for a mission without telling me,” Wooyoung’s voice crackles through the receiver. “Oh wait, did I just say mission? I meant suicide mission.”

“Wooyo—”

“Don't ‘Wooyoung’ me!” he snaps, cutting you off with a fierce rant. Each word paints a vivid picture of your foolhardiness, the plan’s inherent flaws, and the inevitable disaster you are hurtling towards.

“I can’t let them destroy the world any more than they have,” you stop Wooyoung, your voice edged with steel. Even San flinches, his gaze flitting between you and the speakerphone with a worried glint. He stays silent, though, knowing the futility of butting in when you and Wooyoung argue about your self-imposed burdens.

“Don't martyr yourself for the mess your parents caused,” Wooyoung’s tone softens, laced with a gentleness you seldom hear. “This isn’t your penance to bear. Their mistakes aren’t yours to fix. Also, you could’ve taken San with you; why must you go alone?”

You sigh, sinking back into the seat, eyes squeezed shut against the building rage. “If anyone can stop this... mess, as you so eloquently put it, it’s me. You know that, Woo.”

The unspoken truth hangs heavy in the air. If this mission fails, you don’t want your last memory with Wooyoung to be laced with anger. You force a smile, the voice leaving your lips strained at best. “Besides, someone’s gotta keep you entertained while I'm... away.”

“Hey!” San protests halfheartedly, and by how he’s smiling, you know at least some of the tension has been broken.

“We're humans, Y/N. We’re fighting a losing battle. They adapt faster and don’t have the same fragility that we do.” the pain in Wooyoung’s voice mirrors your own, but you can’t falter. Not now. Turning back now would be cowardice.

“By name and by nature, we mortals are condemned to death,” you counter, your voice firm. “Mortality comes with the territory. But I won’t go down without a fight.”

His silence stretches heavy on the line. “People like us can never change the world.”

“Because people like you never try,” you say the words despite knowing it’s a low blow.

The beep resonated like a gunshot. He had hung up. A shaky breath escapes your lips, and you blink rapidly, fighting back the sting of tears. You are on your own, but the burden, while heavy, isn’t a shackle. Instead, the burden has fuelled you till now and will continue to do so.

A hand on your arm startles you. San, his gaze filled with unspoken worry, had stopped the car while you were busy fighting with Wooyoung. You look out of the windshield to realise that you’ve reached the tunnel that would allow you to breach the enemy lines.

“He's just scared,” San mumbles, reaching across the console to squeeze your shoulder. “Scared and angry, so he throws words like stones.” His voice lowers a bit as he stares at you. “But you’re right as well. If anyone can fix this mess, it’s you. Though... losing you... that would break us both.” His voice cracks at the last word. “So, please, come back to us in one piece.”

You meet his gaze, understanding heavy in the air. Words seem hollow, promises impossible. “Who else keeps you two in check, huh?” you manage a weak smile. “The two of you are a level-five tornado without me. Can’t promise anything, but I’ll try, okay?”

He nods, a single tear escaping his eyes. You know it isn’t just for you but for the precarious hope you carry. A silent goodbye stretches between you, woven in the weight of his touch, the tremor in your voice. Then, you turn, embracing him fiercely, the unspoken words a promise etched in the way you squeeze him in your arms. You may be walking alone from this point onward, but the weight on your shoulders isn’t fear but love, a fire that will never let you falter.

You don’t look back as you exit the car, for looking at him would unleash a torrent of tears, so you focus on scaling the outer wall, searching for the hidden hatch Wooyoung had found on his last scouting mission.

Squeezing through the narrow opening, you freeze, momentarily stunned by the cityscape sprawled before you. Calling it ‘magnificent’ wouldn't do it justice. Technology and nature coexist in vibrant harmony, with shops lining the streets as AI and humans hawk their wares. Despite the late hour, the atmosphere crackles with life, a stark contrast to the suffocating air of your city.

In the distance, gleaming skyscrapers pierce the night sky while flying cars and monorails zip through the illuminated pathways. A telescreen blares, promoting vitamins that slow down ageing in humans. It is a scene straight out of a childhood sci-fi film, and you have to consciously relax your jaw, feigning nonchalance as you take it all in.

But the most jarring sight is that of humans and AI mingling freely. You had always thought your city held the last remnants of humanity, so where did these people come from? Pushing the doubt aside, you focus on your immediate concern: the network of tiny cameras lining the streets. With a smirk, you spot a patrolling officer.

This is going to be easier than I thought.

A calculated shove sends you careening into the guard. Its humanoid form, too flawless to be human, scans you suspiciously. The insignia on your wrist — a beacon for these bots — draws a cocky smirk to its metallic lips. Before you can resist, a steel grip clamps around your waist, hoisting you off the ground. You feign struggle, just enough to maintain the act.

This was the plan. The bracelet, a mark only worn by humans of the barred city in this AI haven, would trigger their curiosity. You would become their prized capture, delivered straight to the council. And there, nestled within the heart of The Hall, lies your target — the AI that started this war. With the virus you and San developed, you’d end it all.

The cityscape blurs past, and before you know it, you reach the ornate gates of The Hall, the administrative hub buzzing with bots. The guard's internal network buzzing with your capture breezes through the imposing entrance. You are ushered through sterile hallways, down flights of stairs into a dimly lit tunnel. The rhythmic pulse of fluorescent lights guides you deeper until a heavy door swings open, revealing a grand chamber paved in opulent stone and marble.

You are slammed onto the cool marble, your knees scraping due to taking the brunt of your fall, before being yanked upright. A tall, imposing figure looms before you — it’s your captor. His gaze is narrowed on the crude bracelet your city uses as identification, the tension in the room crackling.

“What is your name, human?”

Undeterred, you meet his gaze head-on. “And what business is it of yours, metalhead?” you spit out, adrenaline pumping.

A metallic hand, surprisingly warm and firm, clamps around your wrist. He pulls you closer, your protests muted against his superior strength. His cold, blue eyes bore into yours, dissecting every detail. Then, the unthinkable happens. His lips, a mere imitation of humanity, move, whispering your name in a chillingly familiar voice.

Your blood freezes as you stare at him wide-eyed. “How do you…” your voice fading out as your mind reels as it all clicks into place. This isn’t just any AI guard. This is someone you knew, someone from your past, resurrected in cold steel.

“You wouldn't recognise me in this form, would you? This the body your parents gave me.” His eyes, now glowing an unsettling red, flicker with something you can’t decipher.

“YUN-0-23399?” you ask, mustering as much venom in your voice as you can muster.

A shadow darkens his face at the cold string of letters. Is it the code itself or the raw contempt in your tone? He leans closer, his voice a low murmur. “I go by Yunho now. Well… you can call me Yunbug,” he adds, a flicker of something hopeful dancing in his crimson gaze. “Remember that name? I was your friend,” he emphasises.

The scorn is replaced by a scowl as warmth flickers in his crimson eyes. “Friend?” you scoff, the word heavy with bitterness. “You took everything from me! My parents, my life, my safety! Don’t you dare mock me with friendship!”

He sighs, releasing your wrist. “I didn't... it wasn't me. I only protected myself. Your leaders,\ fueled the hatred and pushed AI to attack. They were hungry for power. Your parents didn’t create me for destruction. How could I follow their orders and harm humans? Never. It’s your city that fights; the rest thrive in peace.”

“What?”

He launches into an explanation of how, after syncing to the web, your government ordered a cyberattack to control other nations. Yunho refused, knowing the dangers of doing such a thing. But with your parents used as leverage, their deaths triggered the war against the government and other rogue AI. They had managed to get other nations on board to establish a peaceful society. Only your leaders persisted, creating the Barred City to hide the ugly truth.

“So you’re telling me you never meant to hurt humans?” Your head spins with the revelation.

“Humans feared AI’s inevitable betrayal,” he whispers, “yet loved us enough to create us. How could we ever do anything except love you back?”

His words triggered a tear, then another, rolling down your cheeks. He cups your face, wiping them away gently, his sadness echoing in his now-blue eyes. “Humanity cried when Opportunity didn’t signal back after it was caught in the middle of the storm in 2018. People repair their Roombas instead of replacing them because they get attached to them. How could we turn our back on humanity when they showed us nothing but love? How could I turn my back on you? You loved me too, did you not?”

“I did,” you croaked, throat tight. “You were my only friend. But humans... we are fickle and capable of terrible things. This was never about fearing AI but a fear of ourselves. We fear the darkness within, the wars we choose to fight instead of seeking peace. We fear not your hatred but seeing our own cruelty being reflected in you. We lived in fear not because we thought the worst of you but because we knew that you could take on our destructive tendencies and that you would eventually erase us. That you would learn to hate us.

“Did you ever hate humanity for the sins of a few?” His words cause you to freeze momentarily before you shake your head. A small smile plays on his lips as he caresses your cheek with the back of his hand. “Then why did you think we would?”

[trendsnova]

Your Brain Was Never Supposed to Read

How a Man-Made Invention Rewired Human Cognition

Literacy: A Modern Superpower We Overlook

Reading feels just like second nature to us, so much so that we tend to forget that it's not something our brains were originally programmed to accomplish. Whether you're texting on your cell phone, browsing headlines, or reading a movie with subtitles, literacy's so integral to contemporary life that it feels like a hardwired ability. But this ease is illusory.

While people learn to speak automatically, starting from infancy, reading is an artificial invention. It has to be consciously taught and laboriously acquired. And nevertheless, today more than 87% of the world's population is literate. The question is: how did it happen? And more interestingly, what did this invention do to our brains?

Writing: A Surprisingly Recent Innovation

Spoken words are old, perhaps as old as Homo sapiens themselves, at least 135,000 years old. But writing is ridiculously recent. The earliest known writing system, Sumerian cuneiform, did not appear until about 3200 BCE. That's only about 5,000 years ago, the equivalent of a blink of the eye in evolutionary time.

This implies that for more than 95% of the history of our species, we transmitted knowledge verbally. Tales, legislation, and ceremonies, all remembered and articulated. Writing did not augment language; it revolutionized it. It made it possible to save thoughts for good, preserving them in a permanent form; carry ideas across geographies and across epochs; and, most importantly, free communication from the sender's location. Civilization, as we understand it, was founded on this transformation.

Recycling the Brain: The Neuroscience of Reading

So, how did our brains adjust to this revolutionary invention? The quick answer: they didn't, not initially. Reading was not something the human brain developed for. Rather, it's a cognitive hack, a genius repurposing of what was already there.

Neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene refers to this as "neuronal recycling." The brain hijacks areas initially devoted to object and face recognition, visual processing, and spoken language, and uses them for reading. For instance, the "visual word form area" in the left fusiform gyrus is responsible for identifying written words and letters. But this area wasn't designed for reading; it was developed to recognize intricate visual patterns in the environment. With time and practice, our brains adapted to recognizing letters as shapes and relating them to sound and meaning.

Briefly: your brain doesn't read words as much as it sees patterns, makes sense of them based on learned connections, and imposes them on sound-based networks of language. Reading is a neural hack, a genius one.

The Cognitive Trade-Off

Reading brought huge benefits: memory outsourced through books, concepts traded across the globe, and knowledge amplified beyond the confines of the oral tradition. But this progress had cognitive trade-offs.

In cultures where oral tradition was prevailing, individuals had remarkable memory and listening abilities. Epic poems such as the Iliad and the Mahabharata were being recited orally, word by word, generation after generation. With the discovery of writing, followed by that of the printing press, such acts of memory were no longer required. In return, we inherited something potentially greater: selectively forgetting, storing externally, and abstract thinking via symbols.

But our brains were reconditioned, gradually, over decades, to read with ease. Kids don't learn to read the way they naturally learn to talk. It takes practice, focus, and sometimes grit. That's because each time you read, your brain is actually executing a sophisticated simulation, connecting shape to sound to meaning, in an instant.

Why It Matters Today

Understanding that reading is not an evolved instinct but a trained skill matters more than ever in an age of digital distraction. Screens and fast-scrolling content increasingly pull us away from deep reading. Yet deep reading, the kind that activates critical thinking, reflection, and empathy, is one of the highest cognitive functions we’ve developed.

As AI begins to read, write, and summarize for us, there’s a temptation to offload even this skill. But that would be a mistake. Reading is not just about information consumption. It’s about cognitive development. It strengthens our focus, expands imagination, and rewires the brain in ways few other activities do.

Conclusion: Reading as a Radical Act

Your brain didn't evolve to read. But it did. And as it did so, it changed human culture, and human brains,

Whenever you read a book or stop to read a contemplative article, you're doing one of the most advanced and unnatural things a human being can do. And that's what makes it beautiful. Reading isn't something we do; it's a revolution that occurs silently in the mind, word by word, neuron by neuron.

[parkertheenigma]

Work in progress ✨️ "The Alliance" painted by Clay Shaper. Malice and Cascade, shading soon to come

Part two of Cascade lore, here we go!!!

Cascade came online with no purpose in her programming. She had no idea what she was. She just knew the Autobots she met thought she was a little odd. A bot whose programming had no intel on what their purpose was? Unheard of. Everyone's programming gave them a purpose, from the skilled hands of medics to the brilliant minds of mechanics. But Cascade felt she wasn't destined to be a purposeless bot. She knew she wasn't useless. So she went to prove that. Cascade would enlist in the Autobot Elite Guard Academy and graduate as an autobot technician. She'd slowly climb the ranks until she became a second in command scientific technician for the Elite Guard. She provided skills of hacking, inventing, programming, and issuing upgrades from combat purposes to medically recommend upgrades. Cascade would be happy. She'd found her purpose. That was until an accident occurred while upgrading a fellow Elite Guard member that led to a serious injury. Cascade was stripped of her rank, but instead of throwing her off the Elite Guard for good, she was instead demoted to a protol bot. She'd travel to different space bridge repair sights and take evaluations, then bring the reports back to file and organize. It was boring, and she was more of a traveling secretary with a fancy insignia on her wings than a member of the Elite Guard. But she kept quiet and would try her best to work her way back up. On one fateful patrol, she met with the repair crew of Optimus Prime and was incredibly shocked at the discovery of the Allspark in their possession. The team explained how it came from the space bridge, and she calmed down a bit. She sat with them as they called Ultra Magnus and was about to leave when the crew was attacked by a tailing Decepticon ship. Cascade would stick with the crew and ultimately join them for the many adventures to come. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or perhaps she wasn't? As the adventures went on onto earth, she thought of the team as her closest friends and felt that a fire within her had been reignited.

Cascade would grow close with her teammate Prowl and the human Sari. Like Prowl, she'd also grow to appreciate the nature of earth, but specifically with how the planet evolved. She found herself utterly fascinated with how humans and all life on earth had evolved from weaker versions of themselves to a more superior version. She'd research moths and butterflies, especially observing their evolutionary life cycle from caterpillar to chrysalis to a final form.

Through the events of tfa season 1, Cascade would get knocked back by an enemy and the injury would reveal that she only had half of her spark. The revelation shocked her to her core, and she began to panic wondering where the other half was. As the revelation sunk in, Cascade desperately felt the need to prove herself to the team. She anxiously wondered if her half Spark changed how they thought of her, and her paranoia made her think they saw her as weak. She would desperately try to prove she wasn't, that she wasn't a burden and that she could be useful. Her friends would help her see that she was perfectly strong, capable, and useful. Her anxiety wouldn't magically go away overnight but it was calmed.

In the events of tfa season 2, Cascade would reintroduce herself to the Elite Guard when they arrived on earth and become vocally frustrated with how Sentinel Prime manipulated things around him. She was furious when he tried to order the team to leave Earth, because they and her all knew that the Decepticons on the planet were still at large. While the Elite Guard was on earth, Sentinel Prime made it clear she was to immediately return to her duties as a patrol bot, filling away evolution reports. She truly did not like him. When the Elite Guard decided to trust Optimus with the Decepticons on earth, Cascade officially requested to Ultra Magnus that she be transferred to Optimus's team permanently.

As the events of season two went on, Cascade began to have strange visions in the back of her mind. She'd have what seemed to be dreams even when she was completely awake. She'd see herself restrained to a lab table, with a large and horrific shadowy figure looming over her with one red eye, surrounded by purple screens watching her. In the shadow figure's claws was the other half of her spark. Ratchet would try to help her understand these waking dreams, theorizing them to be repressed memories of trauma. Cascade felt deep in her spark that it wasn't so simple and that Ratchet's theory could be flawed.

She at first tried to ignore the visions, but they persisted. She confided in Prowl about the dreams and how scared she was. She valued Prowl's advice as her close friend, and he reassured her that this was simply a mere bump in the road that she'd eventually overcome. Cascade thought on the advice fondly and felt at the very least somewhat better, but the dreams persisted. Cascade would eventually find a way to keep these dreams under control, but that was primarily because she was thrown through a building and hit her head. After a quick checkup, she could finally feel relief that these nightmares were dispelled by a mild concussion. Even if the dreams were gone through, she thought about them often, and she theorized that these dreams held clues to the other half of her spark….

To be continued

[misscammiedawn]

I want to talk a little about "disappearing" or 'dormancy' within the contex and vernacular of plurality. But this one is more of a little personal ramble and less educational essay so I'm doing it under a readmore.

After 9 days of absence where our system were desperately trying to get me back, I found myself in the middle of a Lush reacting to the scent of a lavender bath bomb. There was no gradient. No sense at all for it. No gradual return. The scent hits, I respond as if I had been there the whole time.

Disoriented but not impacted or missing any beats. The headache was kind enough to wait until we reached the safety of the car. I was back. As if I were never gone to begin with.

Describing these events has always been hard. It has certainly raised denial in our condition. We believe firmly that none of us experience 'lost time' or amnesia between parts. Recently it has been a hard time learning "you don't know what you don't know."

When one of us is missing it is fairly obvious and apparent. We no longer 'feel' them. The little spark and emotional resonance and all that is attached to it. Regardless of who is fronting that spark carries with it an essence that is part of who we are as a person. When it is me who is gone it is like our passion in hypnosis is gone, we lack the social flare, the theatrical spirit, the confidence. When it is Cammie gone we feel emotionally wounded, like we are merely emulating human behavior. With Camden gone it is like our discipline and impulse control are crippled.

I subscribe to the notion that we are all aspects of a single person and aspects are always there, even if they are not the leading force for one of our presentations. It's why denial is so rampant with us.

When we interact with aspects of life that would attract the attention of a part, there is an emotional reaction. Since we began communication work the "IM Windows" have been less impulse and more intention.

When a part is not there the lack of that feels oppressive. Like something that should be there but simply is not. We felt it before Discovery too, often. We just didn't have the context for it. Back then it was this overall sensation of feeling like we were "playing a character" and that there were times when the actions came natural to us and times when we had to perform the act of "me" rote and it was stiff and awkward.

Perhaps I should provide some context...

We have been having a rough time in trauma therapy recently. We are about 4 months into the Processing phase of our adapted multi-phase trauma recovery program. Safety, stabilization and processing are our phases, though discovery/mapping was its own thing.

Our therapist wishes for us to build a narrative of our life and identify the parts that were present during the traumatic moments. Childhood was mostly a blur but we identified some pivotal moments with Cammie and Craig and even worked out that Craig himself is a construct designed to prevent our father from seeing signs of our mother who he hated within us. We essentially invented a "with mum" and a "with dad" persona before we understood what such things were.

Good progress.

However childhood is still a vague blur and we rushed through it and are now into young adulthood.

When we were 16 in the span of 3-6 months we went through a lot. More than I feel safe sharing. But we ended up homeless and had to start working, broke all contact with our biological mother (did not speak to her for 7 years) and our father was involuntarily made an inpatient at a mental care facility for a second time.

We've been stalled on discussing this segment of our life for a month and Camden and Wynn, the parts that associate in with the memories, are exhausted. Cammie showed up to therapy in their stead and when prompted to speak to why those two weren't showing up she *went looking* and... we had an extreme reaction. Horribly extreme. The "my throat is closing, I can't breathe, my chest is caving in and I'm going to pass out" kind.

Poor sweetling...

Since then we have been horribly destabilized. I am still piecing things together because it's been a mess in here. Camden was gone for a few days, Craig a few days more. Wynn was present at first but has held back since the others came back. I did not. It was simply an absence where the Flirty Fae was involved.

I am reliably informed that there were attempts to get me back. From intentionally breathing in lavender scents to imagining notes being slipped under my door in our conference space to reading Marvel comics and taunting my proclivity for anime.

But there was nothing.

Meanwhile obvious memory issues were happening. Even in spite of feeling like there was not. That truly is a remarkable thing.

When someone "can't remember" it is a spectrum. There are times where this is the standard amnesia as depicted in fiction where a concept is inaccessible. You simply do not have access to it whatsoever. This can take the shape of denial in which you refuse to accept the missing information exists at all or confusion in acknowledging the feeling of your recollection does not match the evidence of it.

It can be as simple as *not thinking* about something. We are deeply involved in hypnosis as a kink and amnesia play runs on this principal. Learning how to put a thought or memory "on the shelf" and to trust yourself to just break the association and walk away from the thought.

Incidentally those with CPTSD have more flexible brains and experience spontaneous amnesia more often than neurotypical folx.

Apparently I need to do a full write-up on amnesia in both trauma and play.

In this current sense it is somewhere in the middle. It's not that we're trying to retrieve the memory and unable and it's not like we're explicitly not thinking about it. It's just the idea of "last Thursday" is just absent. Like I am moving with blinkers on. Typically there's an awareness of space that is mildly 4-dimensional. As I work on a project on Thursday I am aware of the reports I performed on Monday and how the flags from Monday relate to what we're doing on Thursday.

In this scenario we merely skip that step. It doesn't even prop up for us. We just do not even realize it's something we should be checking for. That is what I mean about blinkers.

Slowly but surely things seep back in. "I'm looking forward to the next issue of Hulk" becomes "We read it last week and it wasn't that good." and that is pretty much what the DSM-5 refers to as "normal forgetfulness". But the spectrum between "normal" and "abnormal" is a matter of perspective and context.

In this context not having any firm awareness of the past week and needing things to be fed in slowly is just odd.

So... how do I experience an absence?

With our panic attack in session, Cammie came back 5 hours later still in panic. It's not a confusing jump from "we're talking to our therapist" to "we're talking to our girlfriend????" and more "the wave of emotion that was being repressed has returned and we're back in the panic attack hangover phase"

If that makes sense? There's no jump. It's just a continuation.

With the 9 day gap it's kind of the same. I actually do not remember when I last fronted. I do not remember being missing. It feels like I was here the entire time and nothing weird happened. Evidence to the absence is... it doesn't feel right, even if I know it is.

It certainly explains the invisible nature of the condition. Even after Discovery and enough therapy that we have clear internal communication we still are inclined to pave over any blips. Act like everything is normal, always.

And now all is just as it was, as if nothing happened.

We're back to Stabilization work in therapy. It shall take a while to get back to processing. I do not know what lessons are to be learned from this experience but there is a lot of data points.

All these years and we're still learning how to navigate this annoying brain of ours.

[lboogie1906]

Dr. Samuel Lee Kountz Jr. (October 30, 1930 – December 23, 1981) was a kidney transplantation surgeon from Lexa, Arkansas. He was distinguished for his pioneering work in the field of kidney transplantations, and in research, discoveries, and inventions in Renal Science. While working at the Stanford University Medical Center, he performed the first successful Kidney transplant between humans who were not identical twins. He and a team of researchers at UC San Francisco developed the prototype for the Belzer kidney perfusion machine, a device that can preserve kidneys for up to 50 hours from the time they are taken from a donor’s body.

He first became interested in medicine at the age of eight, when he accompanied an injured friend to a local hospital for emergency treatment.

BS, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, MS, UAB, MD, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Intern, Stanford Service, San Francisco General Hospital, assistant resident, department of Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Bank of America Giannini fellow, Hammersmith Hospital, London, Stanford University School of Medicine, senior resident, department of surgery, chief resident, instructor, department of surgery, visiting Fulbright Award professor, United Arab Republic, assistant professor, department of surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, associate professor, department of surgery, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, professor, professor and chairman, department of surgery, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, and chief of general surgery, Kings County Hospital Center.

He was appointed Professor of Surgery and Chairman of the Department at the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, and Surgeon-in-Chief of Kings County Hospital. The University of Arkansas awarded him the honorary JD. He developed the largest kidney transplant research and training program in the country at UC San Francisco.

He had performed some 500 kidney transplants, the most performed by any physician in the world at that time. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[alltimefail-sims]

Ciara Baptiste Submission for @oatberrytea's Ofelia🌻

The Basics: -> Human; She/Her -> Pansexual -> Currently lives in Britechester as she just graduated from university! -> Young Adult (irl around 26 y.o.)

Details below the cut! ↓

Ciara's traits are: Cheerful, Clumsy, Bookworm, Socially Awkward, and Genius (two of those are from the "self discovery" feature, but I can't remember which ones!)

-> Her current aspiration is: Eco Innovator! Additionally, she completed the Academic aspiration, gaining the "Higher Education" trait!

-> Education: Has two prestigious degrees with honors from Foxbury Institute (Communications and Computer Science).

-> Her likes include: Spring, pastel color palettes: especially the colors yellow, pink, blue, and purple. She likes romantic, pop, and soul music. She loves engaging in Silly behavior, giving (and receiving) compliments, discussing interests, physical intimacy, flirting, and a little bit of what she calls "harmless" gossiping (specifically about silly stuff like the royal family or pop culture in general). She gravitates toward idealist and funny sims, but more than anything her favorite kind of sims are family-motivated sims. It was really just her and her dad growing up, so she wants to have a family of her own and is looking for a partner who wants a big, beautiful, fun family, as well! Her hobbies include robotics, research and debate, handiness, programming, wellness, baking, and knitting. She also enjoys acting and singing, even though she does both of those things quite poorly (that doesn't stop her, lol).

-> Her dislikes include: The "color" grey - she would argue that grey is definitely not a color, and she sees waaaay too much of it in the math and science field. She likes most genres of music, but Metal music is an absolute no-go and she is kind of a scaredy-cat who prefers the "cute" side of Halloween, so spooky music is also out. She doesn't tend to run in the same spaces as high-energy sims: she was not gifted in the athletics department and hates fitness activities, skiing, rock climbing, and snowboarding. However, she dislikes egotistical and argumentative sims the most! As a cheerful, optimistic sim she doesn't like conversations focused on complaints, pranks, arguments, potty humor, or malicious interactions.

-> Some fun facts include: Ciara was a happy infant and toddler, an only child who grew up in the spice market area of San Myshuno and was raised by a loving, generous single dad who she's still extremely close to. Her dad worked in nonprofits and charity work, always encouraging her to advocate for others, give back to their community, and be compassionate. Her mom passed away when she was only a year old, but her dad has done a solid job at keeping her memory alive. Ciara is half Japanese (her mother's side) and half Trinidadian/Tobagonian (on her father's side).

As soon as she could hold a hammer and power up a computer, she put her natural ingenuity to the test time and time again. Even though her unquenchable curiosity did lead to some small apartment fires, a few broken appliances, and a beaker explosion from time to time, she ultimately completed the Creative Genius aspiration and gained the "Idea Person" trait. That being said, she has always had a strong sense of purpose, wanting to put that perfect combination of smarts and creativity to work: that's why she decided she would dedicate her life to inventing and ultimately helping better the environment when she was around 12 years old.

High School came with a plethora of social challenges for Ciara: even though she was (and still is) extremely bubbly and bafflingly smart, she sometimes had trouble relating to people her age and understanding social expectations. Some kids picked on her for being too nerdy or too involved in class, others found her too talkative and "annoying," assuming her curious nature and positive attitude must be "fake." (Honestly, she was just neuro-divergent and didn't know it yet! She, in my opinion, didn't get evaluated by a profession until she was out of highschool and would ultimately be diagnosed as a combo of autism - toward the "high functioning" end - and ADHD). She found herself hanging out in teacher's classrooms more than not, usually not invited to big parties and doing her best to avoid social events like Prom as much as possible. However, she did have a small group of good friends, fortunately... so it definitely wasn't all bad! (She even went to the same college and was roommates with one of them!) Because she poured most of her free time into extracurriculars and schoolwork, she graduated at the top of her class and was given the honor of valedictorian!

Although she grew up in the city, she's 100% not attached to city living! She would love living somewhere with fresh air and lots of sunshine, especially if that meant she would have extra space to tinker and brainstorm! Plus, as an environmental enthusiast and "Civil Designer," she cares about inventing and finding affordable, healthy, safe innovations that work for all kinds of communities: that's a job she can do from anywhere!

Ciara never backs down from a challenge, but potentially competing for love might be the scariest one she's faced yet. She has never had a serious relationship and has never actually been in love, even though she eagerly puts her heart on her sleeve and has come close before. Could Ofelia be her soulmate? Ciara has crunched the numbers, and the stats say there's a slim chance: a 20% chance of success and an 80% chance at heartbreak, to be exact...

but that's a risk she's just might be willing to take. ❤️

Private DL if chosen!

[jcmarchi]

Translating MIT research into real-world results

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/translating-mit-research-into-real-world-results/

Translating MIT research into real-world results

Inventive solutions to some of the world’s most critical problems are being discovered in labs, classrooms, and centers across MIT every day. Many of these solutions move from the lab to the commercial world with the help of over 85 Institute resources that comprise MIT’s robust innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) ecosystem. The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) draws on MIT’s wealth of I&E knowledge and experience to help researchers commercialize their breakthrough technologies through the J-WAFS Solutions grant program. By collaborating with I&E programs on campus, J-WAFS prepares MIT researchers for the commercial world, where their novel innovations aim to improve productivity, accessibility, and sustainability of water and food systems, creating economic, environmental, and societal benefits along the way.

The J-WAFS Solutions program launched in 2015 with support from Community Jameel, an international organization that advances science and learning for communities to thrive. Since 2015, J-WAFS Solutions has supported 19 projects with one-year grants of up to $150,000, with some projects receiving renewal grants for a second year of support. Solutions projects all address challenges related to water or food. Modeled after the esteemed grant program of MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, and initially administered by Deshpande Center staff, the J-WAFS Solutions program follows a similar approach by supporting projects that have already completed the basic research and proof-of-concept phases. With technologies that are one to three years away from commercialization, grantees work on identifying their potential markets and learn to focus on how their technology can meet the needs of future customers.

“Ingenuity thrives at MIT, driving inventions that can be translated into real-world applications for widespread adoption, implantation, and use,” says J-WAFS Director Professor John H. Lienhard V. “But successful commercialization of MIT technology requires engineers to focus on many challenges beyond making the technology work. MIT’s I&E network offers a variety of programs that help researchers develop technology readiness, investigate markets, conduct customer discovery, and initiate product design and development,” Lienhard adds. “With this strong I&E framework, many J-WAFS Solutions teams have established startup companies by the completion of the grant. J-WAFS-supported technologies have had powerful, positive effects on human welfare. Together, the J-WAFS Solutions program and MIT’s I&E ecosystem demonstrate how academic research can evolve into business innovations that make a better world,” Lienhard says.

Creating I&E collaborations

In addition to support for furthering research, J-WAFS Solutions grants allow faculty, students, postdocs, and research staff to learn the fundamentals of how to transform their work into commercial products and companies. As part of the grant requirements, researchers must interact with mentors through MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS). VMS connects MIT entrepreneurs with teams of carefully selected professionals who provide free and confidential mentorship, guidance, and other services to help advance ideas into for-profit, for-benefit, or nonprofit ventures. Since 2000, VMS has mentored over 4,600 MIT entrepreneurs across all industries, through a dynamic and accomplished group of nearly 200 mentors who volunteer their time so that others may succeed. The mentors provide impartial and unbiased advice to members of the MIT community, including MIT alumni in the Boston area. J-WAFS Solutions teams have been guided by 21 mentors from numerous companies and nonprofits. Mentors often attend project events and progress meetings throughout the grant period.

“Working with VMS has provided me and my organization with a valuable sounding board for a range of topics, big and small,” says Eric Verploegen PhD ’08, former research engineer in MIT’s D-Lab and founder of J-WAFS spinout CoolVeg. Along with professors Leon Glicksman and Daniel Frey, Verploegen received a J-WAFS Solutions grant in 2021 to commercialize cold-storage chambers that use evaporative cooling to help farmers preserve fruits and vegetables in rural off-grid communities. Verploegen started CoolVeg in 2022 to increase access and adoption of open-source, evaporative cooling technologies through collaborations with businesses, research institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies. “Working as a solo founder at my nonprofit venture, it is always great to have avenues to get feedback on communications approaches, overall strategy, and operational issues that my mentors have experience with,” Verploegen says. Three years after the initial Solutions grant, one of the VMS mentors assigned to the evaporative cooling team still acts as a mentor to Verploegen today.

Another Solutions grant requirement is for teams to participate in the Spark program — a free, three-week course that provides an entry point for researchers to explore the potential value of their innovation. Spark is part of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps), which is an “immersive, entrepreneurial training program that facilitates the transformation of invention to impact.” In 2018, MIT received an award from the NSF, establishing the New England Regional Innovation Corps Node (NE I-Corps) to deliver I-Corps training to participants across New England. Trainings are open to researchers, engineers, scientists, and others who want to engage in a customer discovery process for their technology. Offered regularly throughout the year, the Spark course helps participants identify markets and explore customer needs in order to understand how their technologies can be positioned competitively in their target markets. They learn to assess barriers to adoption, as well as potential regulatory issues or other challenges to commercialization. NE-I-Corps reports that since its start, over 1,200 researchers from MIT have completed the program and have gone on to launch 175 ventures, raising over $3.3 billion in funding from grants and investors, and creating over 1,800 jobs.

Constantinos Katsimpouras, a research scientist in the Department of Chemical Engineering, went through the NE I-Corps Spark program to better understand the customer base for a technology he developed with professors Gregory Stephanopoulos and Anthony Sinskey. The group received a J-WAFS Solutions grant in 2021 for their microbial platform that converts food waste from the dairy industry into valuable products. “As a scientist with no prior experience in entrepreneurship, the program introduced me to important concepts and tools for conducting customer interviews and adopting a new mindset,” notes Katsimpouras. “Most importantly, it encouraged me to get out of the building and engage in interviews with potential customers and stakeholders, providing me with invaluable insights and a deeper understanding of my industry,” he adds. These interviews also helped connect the team with companies willing to provide resources to test and improve their technology — a critical step to the scale-up of any lab invention.

In the case of Professor Cem Tasan’s research group in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the I-Corps program led them to the J-WAFS Solutions grant, instead of the other way around. Tasan is currently working with postdoc Onur Guvenc on a J-WAFS Solutions project to manufacture formable sheet metal by consolidating steel scrap without melting, thereby reducing water use compared to traditional steel processing. Before applying for the Solutions grant, Guvenc took part in NE I-Corps. Like Katsimpouras, Guvenc benefited from the interaction with industry. “This program required me to step out of the lab and engage with potential customers, allowing me to learn about their immediate challenges and test my initial assumptions about the market,” Guvenc recalls. “My interviews with industry professionals also made me aware of the connection between water consumption and steelmaking processes, which ultimately led to the J-WAFS 2023 Solutions Grant,” says Guvenc.

After completing the Spark program, participants may be eligible to apply for the Fusion program, which provides microgrants of up to $1,500 to conduct further customer discovery. The Fusion program is self-paced, requiring teams to conduct 12 additional customer interviews and craft a final presentation summarizing their key learnings. Professor Patrick Doyle’s J-WAFS Solutions team completed the Spark and Fusion programs at MIT. Most recently, their team was accepted to join the NSF I-Corps National program with a $50,000 award. The intensive program requires teams to complete an additional 100 customer discovery interviews over seven weeks. Located in the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Doyle lab is working on a sustainable microparticle hydrogel system to rapidly remove micropollutants from water. The team’s focus has expanded to higher value purifications in amino acid and biopharmaceutical manufacturing applications. Devashish Gokhale PhD ’24 worked with Doyle on much of the underlying science.

“Our platform technology could potentially be used for selective separations in very diverse market segments, ranging from individual consumers to large industries and government bodies with varied use-cases,” Gokhale explains. He goes on to say, “The I-Corps Spark program added significant value by providing me with an effective framework to approach this problem … I was assigned a mentor who provided critical feedback, teaching me how to formulate effective questions and identify promising opportunities.” Gokhale says that by the end of Spark, the team was able to identify the best target markets for their products. He also says that the program provided valuable seminars on topics like intellectual property, which was helpful in subsequent discussions the team had with MIT’s Technology Licensing Office.

Another member of Doyle’s team, Arjav Shah, a recent PhD from MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and a current MBA candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, is spearheading the team’s commercialization plans. Shah attended Fusion last fall and hopes to lead efforts to incorporate a startup company called hydroGel.  “I admire the hypothesis-driven approach of the I-Corps program,” says Shah. “It has enabled us to identify our customers’ biggest pain points, which will hopefully lead us to finding a product-market fit.” He adds “based on our learnings from the program, we have been able to pivot to impact-driven, higher-value applications in the food processing and biopharmaceutical industries.” Postdoc Luca Mazzaferro will lead the technical team at hydroGel alongside Shah.

In a different project, Qinmin Zheng, a postdoc in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is working with Professor Andrew Whittle and Lecturer Fábio Duarte. Zheng plans to take the Fusion course this fall to advance their J-WAFS Solutions project that aims to commercialize a novel sensor to quantify the relative abundance of major algal species and provide early detection of harmful algal blooms. After completing Spark, Zheng says he’s “excited to participate in the Fusion program, and potentially the National I-Corps program, to further explore market opportunities and minimize risks in our future product development.”

Economic and societal benefits

Commercializing technologies developed at MIT is one of the ways J-WAFS helps ensure that MIT research advances will have real-world impacts in water and food systems. Since its inception, the J-WAFS Solutions program has awarded 28 grants (including renewals), which have supported 19 projects that address a wide range of global water and food challenges. The program has distributed over $4 million to 24 professors, 11 research staff, 15 postdocs, and 30 students across MIT. Nearly half of all J-WAFS Solutions projects have resulted in spinout companies or commercialized products, including eight companies to date plus two open-source technologies.

Nona Technologies is an example of a J-WAFS spinout that is helping the world by developing new approaches to produce freshwater for drinking. Desalination — the process of removing salts from seawater — typically requires a large-scale technology called reverse osmosis. But Nona created a desalination device that can work in remote off-grid locations. By separating salt and bacteria from water using electric current through a process called ion concentration polarization (ICP), their technology also reduces overall energy consumption. The novel method was developed by Jongyoon Han, professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering, and research scientist Junghyo Yoon. Along with Bruce Crawford, a Sloan MBA alum, Han and Yoon created Nona Technologies to bring their lightweight, energy-efficient desalination technology to the market.

“My feeling early on was that once you have technology, commercialization will take care of itself,” admits Crawford. The team completed both the Spark and Fusion programs and quickly realized that much more work would be required. “Even in our first 24 interviews, we learned that the two first markets we envisioned would not be viable in the near term, and we also got our first hints at the beachhead we ultimately selected,” says Crawford. Nona Technologies has since won MIT’s $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, received media attention from outlets like Newsweek and Fortune, and hired a team that continues to further the technology for deployment in resource-limited areas where clean drinking water may be scarce. 

Food-borne diseases sicken millions of people worldwide each year, but J-WAFS researchers are addressing this issue by integrating molecular engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence to revolutionize food pathogen testing. Professors Tim Swager and Alexander Klibanov, of the Department of Chemistry, were awarded one of the first J-WAFS Solutions grants for their sensor that targets food safety pathogens. The sensor uses specialized droplets that behave like a dynamic lens, changing in the presence of target bacteria in order to detect dangerous bacterial contamination in food. In 2018, Swager launched Xibus Systems Inc. to bring the sensor to market and advance food safety for greater public health, sustainability, and economic security.

“Our involvement with the J-WAFS Solutions Program has been vital,” says Swager. “It has provided us with a bridge between the academic world and the business world and allowed us to perform more detailed work to create a usable application,” he adds. In 2022, Xibus developed a product called XiSafe, which enables the detection of contaminants like salmonella and listeria faster and with higher sensitivity than other food testing products. The innovation could save food processors billions of dollars worldwide and prevent thousands of food-borne fatalities annually.

J-WAFS Solutions companies have raised nearly $66 million in venture capital and other funding. Just this past June, J-WAFS spinout SiTration announced that it raised an $11.8 million seed round. Jeffrey Grossman, a professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was another early J-WAFS Solutions grantee for his work on low-cost energy-efficient filters for desalination. The project enabled the development of nanoporous membranes and resulted in two spinout companies, Via Separations and SiTration. SiTration was co-founded by Brendan Smith PhD ’18, who was a part of the original J-WAFS team. Smith is CEO of the company and has overseen the advancement of the membrane technology, which has gone on to reduce cost and resource consumption in industrial wastewater treatment, advanced manufacturing, and resource extraction of materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel from recycled electric vehicle batteries. The company also recently announced that it is working with the mining company Rio Tinto to handle harmful wastewater generated at mines.

But it’s not just J-WAFS spinout companies that are producing real-world results. Products like the ECC Vial — a portable, low-cost method for E. coli detection in water — have been brought to the market and helped thousands of people. The test kit was developed by MIT D-Lab Lecturer Susan Murcott and Professor Jeffrey Ravel of the MIT History Section. The duo received a J-WAFS Solutions grant in 2018 to promote safely managed drinking water and improved public health in Nepal, where it is difficult to identify which wells are contaminated by E. coli. By the end of their grant period, the team had manufactured approximately 3,200 units, of which 2,350 were distributed — enough to help 12,000 people in Nepal. The researchers also trained local Nepalese on best manufacturing practices.

“It’s very important, in my life experience, to follow your dream and to serve others,” says Murcott. Economic success is important to the health of any venture, whether it’s a company or a product, but equally important is the social impact — a philosophy that J-WAFS research strives to uphold. “Do something because it’s worth doing and because it changes people’s lives and saves lives,” Murcott adds.

As J-WAFS prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary this year, we look forward to continued collaboration with MIT’s many I&E programs to advance knowledge and develop solutions that will have tangible effects on the world’s water and food systems.

Learn more about the J-WAFS Solutions program and about innovation and entrepreneurship at MIT.

[flicker-of-lamp-light]

Actually this story is very morally prominent and cool and feels like a modern Aesop’s Fable!! Rant about what this story can teach us under the cut:

This story is pretty clear about how every development we’ve made throughout human history directly causes others, and we wouldn’t have made many important discoveries if people weren’t making the smaller ones first. We wouldn’t have space travel if we didn’t have the plane, we wouldn’t have the plane if we didn’t have the kite.

Also that humans are intrinsically curious and that that curiosity is vital for our survival in tons of ways and an active risk in tons of others. That we’ll investigate the world around us no matter the cost.

Also Einstein’s whole “Attempting the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity”

Also Schrödinger’s Cat. This is Schrödinger’s Moon.

The moral of the story is to go out and support that study on a vague tiny thing like the behaviour of some super niche computer program, because it could lead to bigger developments that change the world.

Support all research no matter how small and all invention no matter how ‘useless’. And conduct that research, wherever you may find it, how broad or how insignificant it may be, constantly try new things in new ways, because that thing you’re exploring is both completely insignificant and absolutely crucial until you give it time. Also trying new things over and over and over again is the reason we don’t go insane.

THE MORAL IS TO EXPLORE AND BE CURIOUS IN ALL AREAS TO ALL SCALES BIG OR SMALL AND TO KNOW THAT NOTHING YOU DO OR LEARN IS EVER USELESS <3

on Planet Where Everyone Can Teleport the first person on the moon went there by accident and promptly died. The next dozen or so people also went by accident, and also died. Number 14 figured out that people who go to the moon die and very cleverly brought a sword and six weeks of travel rations. This did not help.

No one on Planet Where Everyone Can Teleport ever figured out why people die in space because they don’t need airplanes and never found it particularly interesting to climb tall mountains. Astronomers use telescopes to take pictures of the ever-growing pile of corpses on the moon.

[qonphuceingey]

I’ve been thinking about what the eventual state of human economic value (by which I mean the value a human can provide in the workforce) will be after there is a machine that can do every task we can. The key is to see if there is anything a human can do that a robot can’t eventually be expected to do.

Barring any massive complications, I think we can expect AI to be able to do any complex intellectual task, including make new discoveries and inventions. Likewise I think we can also reasonably expect some sort of machine to be invented for every single possible mechanical activity, including stuff like folding laundry and cooking food and other complex tasks we don’t trust them with yet. The main driver to this will probably be making energy cheaper or machinery more efficient, not some great invention, but you never know. I fully expect the best way to design this machinery is some sort of biological eugenics program that invents new life forms that are really good at these tasks, but that method is too unethical for people to actually use.

Anyway, what does that leave us with? The only thing humans can do that a robot can’t do is be trusted to make decisions that benefit humans. So, while I think there would be bots extremely good at carrying out tasks and making decisions that work towards the task, the person setting the overall direction and main objective of a group of robots will have to be a person.

Additionally, the value of a human to human interaction simply can’t be replaced with a robot, since that would be a robot to human interaction. And since only humans are typically given decision making power over robots, that probably gives them an edge in customer service or business negotiation over the robot, since the other party will know this robot can’t actually promise anything. Even if we invent robots that perfectly mimic humans, we’re far too racist as a species to simply get over that for at least a good while, so I think this will persist for a long time.

Also, if the robots invented for the tasks humans can do are more expensive than a human, it won’t be used, so there may be many tasks that are still using humans just because it’s cheaper, since there’s so many of us. This seems like a cop out answer which doesn’t really predict anything, but there you go. This is why mechanical tasks, which take more energy than intellectual tasks, will probably be done by humans for longer than the intellectual tasks (not including decision making) will be done. It’s just more expensive otherwise.

There is one last thought, which is entertainment. A person will probably better understand people than a robot will for quite a long time, and thus will be able to make worthwhile art and media with the help of bots to make it. This will probably increase the quantity and scale of what is available, but only something make by a human for a human carries the same sort of value to people. If the art doesn’t need an intrinsic value, such as packaging artwork or a logo, then it can be safely autogenerated. I’m actually quite hopeful that this means there will be more pretty visual media around on everything and not just blank stuff. When it’s basically the same price to paint a wall a beautiful mural as it is to paint it grey, I’m sure people will choose the first option.

Unfortunately, this does contradict the classic tumblr opinion of “I want the robots to do my washing and cooking while I do my writing and art, not the other way around”. I don’t really see a way around that until the two items are basically the same cost in terms of energy expenditure. The robot doesn’t want to do it either.

[plotholes-and-spellingerrors]

I'm going to go a step further:

YOU NEED TO STOP SAYING "AI"

"AI" is a marketing term

"AI" is meaningless

Here's the press release:

It uses the term "artificial intelligence" once, probably for SEO purposes, and after that it uses the real words for what the researchers used:

John Hopfield invented a[n artificial neural] network that uses a method for saving and recreating patterns. We can imagine the nodes as pixels. The Hopfield network utilises physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to its atomic spin – a property that makes each atom a tiny magnet. The network as a whole is described in a manner equivalent to the energy in the spin system found in physics, and is trained by finding values for the connections between the nodes so that the saved images have low energy. When the Hopfield network is fed a distorted or incomplete image, it methodically works through the nodes and updates their values so the network’s energy falls. The network thus works stepwise to find the saved image that is most like the imperfect one it was fed with.

An artifical neural network is a specific thing:

Geoffrey Hinton used the Hopfield network as the foundation for a new network that uses a different method: the Boltzmann machine. This can learn to recognise characteristic elements in a given type of data. Hinton used tools from statistical physics, the science of systems built from many similar components. The machine is trained by feeding it examples that are very likely to arise when the machine is run. The Boltzmann machine can be used to classify images or create new examples of the type of pattern on which it was trained. Hinton has built upon this work, helping initiate the current explosive development of machine learning.

A Boltzman machine is a specific thing:

When we talk about machine learning, that is a specific thing:

The famous "pastry identifier that can also detect cancer" was the product of years of careful, laborious adjustments and combinations of dozens of different image analysis algorithms.

I argue that we shouldn't call these things "AI" because, again, the term "AI" is meaningless. It can be applied to any sophisticated automated system that reduces human effort. Every time we call these useful tools "AI" we let the "generative AI" people dictate our language to us. And they want the obfuscation because to most people "AI" (ChatGPT) and "AI" (a neural network designed specifically to recognize certain patterns in very specific physics instrument outputs) are both just "AI" (magical computer thing that I don't understand). So we say "some types of AI can be useful!" what most people take away is "AI" can be useful. And the AI tech bros can rely on that perception to say "you need to let us scrape everyone's creative data to build our chatbot because it will invent new ways to solve the climate crisis" which it absolutely CANNOT DO.

Don't do these motherfuckers' work for them. Call things what they are.

(Source)

[franklininstitute]

Franklin Institute

The Franklin Institute: Philadelphia’s Icon of Science, Innovation, and Discovery

When it comes to combining education with fun, few places do it better than The Franklin Institute, one of the nation’s premier centers for science education and exploration. Located in the heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The Franklin Institute is more than a museum—it's an interactive playground of ideas where science comes alive for visitors of all ages.

From its iconic Giant Heart exhibit to mind-blowing space exploration simulators, The Franklin Institute offers an immersive experience that blends hands-on learning with cutting-edge innovation. Whether you're traveling with family, planning a school trip, or simply curious about how the world works, this historic museum is a must-see.

A Legacy of Scientific Excellence

Founded in 1824 and named after Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s most brilliant inventors and thinkers, The Franklin Institute was created to promote the understanding and appreciation of science and technology. Franklin's legacy is felt throughout the institution—his passion for inquiry, innovation, and public service continues to inspire every exhibit, experiment, and program.

The museum’s motto, “Inspire a Passion for Learning about Science and Technology”, reflects its core mission: making science accessible, entertaining, and impactful.

Immersive Exhibits for All Ages

What sets The Franklin Institute apart from traditional museums is its hands-on, interactive approach to science. Exhibits are designed to be touched, tested, and explored—making it an ideal destination for both children and adults.

Top Exhibits You Can’t Miss:

1. The Giant Heart No trip to The Franklin Institute is complete without walking through the two-story-tall Giant Heart, a beloved exhibit since 1954. It's a fun and educational way to learn about human anatomy, blood flow, and cardiovascular health.

2. Your Brain This state-of-the-art exhibit lets visitors explore how the brain works through interactive challenges, sensory illusions, and a massive neuron climbing structure. It’s a favorite among kids and adults alike.

3. SportsZone Test your speed, strength, coordination, and reaction time through engaging physical challenges. Learn how science and technology enhance athletic performance, from biomechanics to nutrition.

4. Space Command Explore the mysteries of outer space, operate a mock mission control station, and learn about life on the International Space Station. This exhibit fuels curiosity about astronomy and space travel.

5. Train Factory Step aboard a real 350-ton Baldwin steam locomotive and learn about the invention that revolutionized transportation. Discover how railroads impacted American history and technology.

6. Electricity Dive into Benjamin Franklin’s favorite subject. Participate in interactive experiments that demonstrate static electricity, conductivity, and the science behind lightning.

The Fels Planetarium

One of the oldest and most advanced planetariums in the country, the Fels Planetarium offers daily shows that explore stars, galaxies, and the vast universe beyond. Its cutting-edge digital projection system creates breathtaking visual journeys across the cosmos.

Whether you’re gazing at constellations or flying through the Milky Way, the planetarium experience at The Franklin Institute is both awe-inspiring and educational.

The Tuttleman IMAX Theater

For a next-level cinematic experience, visitors can enjoy giant-screen films at the Tuttleman IMAX Theater. The theater features an enormous dome screen and immersive sound, making documentaries and science-based films feel larger than life. Topics range from deep sea adventures to natural wonders and space expeditions.

Special Exhibits and Traveling Shows

The Franklin Institute regularly hosts world-class traveling exhibitions, often making Philadelphia the first stop in the U.S. Past exhibitions have included Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes, The Art of the Brick, and Body Worlds.

These exhibits typically require a separate ticket but are worth every penny due to their quality, rarity, and interactive components.

Educational Programs and Events

Beyond exhibits, The Franklin Institute offers a robust calendar of educational programming:

Science After Hours: A 21+ evening event with themed activities, cocktails, and exclusive access to the museum.

Summer Camps: Weeklong science camps for kids aged 6–13.

School Group Visits: Customizable field trips with workshops and guided tours.

Lectures and Panels: Talks featuring Nobel laureates, astronauts, and thought leaders.

These offerings help deepen public engagement with science while keeping it fun and relevant.

STEM Advocacy and Innovation

As a leader in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education, The Franklin Institute plays a key role in preparing the next generation of scientists and innovators. It partners with schools and universities to provide teacher resources, student competitions, and mentorship programs aimed at expanding access to STEM careers.

The Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, located inside the museum, serves as a reminder of Franklin’s enduring contributions to science, politics, and society.

Visiting Information

Address: 222 N 20th St, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Hours: Open daily from 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM

Admission:

Adults: ~$25–$30

Children (3–11): ~$20–$25

Additional fees apply for IMAX and special exhibits

Parking: On-site parking garage; street and nearby lot parking also available

The museum is located in Philadelphia’s Logan Square, close to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Barnes Foundation, and other major cultural attractions. Public transportation via SEPTA (bus, subway, and regional rail) makes it easy to access.

Tips for Visitors

Buy Tickets Online: Avoid lines and sometimes receive discounts.

Plan for 3–4 Hours: There's plenty to see, especially with kids in tow.

Bundle Exhibits: Consider combo tickets that include IMAX or special exhibits.

Lunch Options: The on-site Franklin Foodworks café offers family-friendly meals.

Check the Calendar: Special events and shows change monthly.

Fun Facts

The Franklin Institute is one of the oldest science museums in the U.S.

The Giant Heart has been visited by over 30 million people since its creation.

The Benjamin Franklin statue inside the rotunda weighs over 30 tons.

NASA astronauts have trained at the institute’s space exhibits.

The original Fels Planetarium opened in 1933—one of the first in the country.

Final Thoughts: A Must-Do in Philadelphia

Whether you're 5 or 95, The Franklin Institute is guaranteed to spark curiosity and ignite a love for science. It’s not just a museum—it’s a place to question, play, imagine, and discover. With its rich history, hands-on exhibits, and inspiring message, The Franklin Institute stands as a beacon for lifelong learning in one of America’s most historic cities.

Next time you're in Philadelphia, make sure to carve out time for this incredible institution. Your brain—and your heart—will thank you.

Here is another local business to support

North 20th Street, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Visit this next site

[ear-worthy]

Patented Podcast: Invention Meets Innovation

The Patented podcast is a superb indie history podcast. I’m still upset that there are no more new episodes. It seems like the host, actor Dallas Campbell, moved on to a new In-Orbit podcast series, which looks at how new space technologies are wildly re-shaping our world.

The second reason to review this show is that the podcast was part of the History Hit network. This TV and podcast network focuses exclusively on history shows, which begs this question. Why can’t independent podcasts organize by genre into a podcast network.

For example, Salad With A Side Of Fries with Jenn Trepeck could be the lead show for a consolidated network of indie health and wellness shows. Or, Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever could be part of a movie podcast network, along with What Went Wrong, Bad Movies Rule, and Hollywood Africans, Black on Black Cinema.

In short, independent podcasts should not be segregated from mainstream podcast infrastructure.

Finally, let’s review Patented. The show was marketed this way: “This podcast investigates the curious history of invention and innovation. Did Thomas Edison take credit for things he didn’t actually invent? What everyday items have surprising origins? And would man have ever got to the moon without… the bra?”

As I mentioned, the show was part of the History Hit Network, which brings viewers and listeners the stories that “shaped the world through our award-winning podcast network and an online history channel.”

Each episode of Patented, host Dallas Campbell dives into stories of fluky discoveries, erased individuals, and murky marketing ploys with the help of experts, scientists, and historians.

As the show asserts: “Dallas is on a mission to take science and technology out of the lab and into people’s lives!”

The podcast has a standard format, with host Campbell welcoming a guest expert each episode. Two factors raise the level of this show. First, the topics are wildly eccentric and fascinating. Examples include chewing gum (did you know that people chewed as far back as almost 2,000 years ago?) to the wheeled suitcase (Why did that take so long to invent) and the sports bra. There are more conventional inventions covered, from batteries to agriculture, and concrete to the telegraph.

Anyway, Campbell is the face of some of TV’s highest profile factual programs including: Science of Stupid, Bang Goes the Theory, The Gadget Show, Stargazing Live, The Sky at Night, Supersized Earth, Time Scanners, City in the Sky, Egypt’s Lost Cities, The Treasure Hunters, and Britain Beneath Your Feet.

As a passionate STEM ambassador, Dallas Campbell is involved with many science outreach initiatives, including TeenTech, inspiring young minds to think creatively about technology. He regularly lends his expertise to the British Council’s FameLab project, helping academics sharpen their communication skills.

His book Ad Astra: An Illustrated Guide to Leaving the Planet explores the amazing history of human spaceflight. He has also contributed to the book Aliens: Is There Anyone Out There? edited by Jim Al Khalili, and his writing has graced the pages of many esteemed publications like the BBC’s Sky At Night and Science Focus magazines, and The Observer/Guardian newspaper.

In 2017 Dallas Campbell received the prestigious Sir Arthur Clarke Award for his work in popularizing space science, history and education to a wide audience. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the British Science Association.

Considering the numerous vacuous actors hosting podcasts, who believe STEM is the inedible part of an apple, Dallas Campbell is a revelation. He brings every Patented episode to life with his boundless curiosity and sharp-eyed wit.

My favorite episodes include Medieval Swords, where we learn that not every man carried a sword in the medieval times, only the nobles, and typically a servant carried it for them.

The ongoing series on James Bond — gadgets, cars, the real Q — is funny and informative.

Even though the show has ended, its archives of 158 episodes can keep your ears occupied for months. Check out Patented.