#write for uc technology

[arkhan759753]

Write For Us Technology & Business Guidelines

We might want to empower all tech writers and other tech bloggers to write for us technology and business information. You can write for us Technology & Business related article on any tech & Business related topics, and send post ideas or sample blog posts to writeforus@technooexpert.com.

[sharpened--edges]

While I was writing this to you, Janet Napolitano, the former U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, assumed her new post as the twentieth president of the University of California system, the first woman to occupy the office. The revolving door between institutions of policing, bordering, surveillance, incarceration, illegalization, militarization, and schooling is not new. Indeed, in San Diego, where I am based, Alan Bersin was superintendent of public schools from 1998 to 2005, after three years of running U.S.–Mexican border law enforcement for Attorney General Janet Reno under President Clinton. After his stint governing schools, Bersin governed the border (again) in 2009, this time for the Obama administration, working as ‘border czar’ under Janet Napolitano, then Homeland Security secretary, now UC president. However, it would be a misguided comparison to describe the bodies of faculty and students as analogous to the bodies of detainees and deportees and migrants and suspectees. It is not analogous power but technologies of power that recirculate in these imperial triangles, for example, debt financing, neoliberal market policies, information systems, managing noncitizen populations, land development. If we consider triangular connections between war abroad and refugee management within, antiblackness and the maintenance of black fungibility and accumulation, and militarization and Indigenous erasure throughout empire, then we can understand why the governors of war and the governors of schools can have similar résumés, without pretending that the governed suffer through identical conditions.

la paperson, A Third University Is Possible (Duke University Press, 2017), pp. 37–38.

[handeaux]

Dorelle Heisel Plumbed Brain Mysteries And Psychedelicized Cincinnati’s Social Circles

Dorelle Markley Heisel called Cincinnati her home for several decades, but her mind was in another dimension. She was known as “Cincinnati’s Brain Lady” and held college faculty positions in literature, psychology and fine art. She pioneered biofeedback techniques to control mental and bodily functions while introducing Cincinnati’s strait-laced society to the psychedelic subculture of the Sixties.

Virginia Dorelle Markley was born in 1917 in Danville, Illinois but spent her childhood shuttling between her father’s Palm Beach restaurant and her mother’s St. Louis hotel. At DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, she was student royalty – literally – voted May Queen in her senior year.

It was at DePauw that she met and became engaged to W. Donald Heisel, a Cincinnati native and Western Hills High School alumnus. At the time of his 1940 marriage to Dorelle, Heisel was assistant secretary to Cincinnati’s Civil Service Commission and was, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer [21 May 1940] “one of the city’s youngest executives.” The Heisels built a new house on a quiet cul de sac in Westwood, where they raised two daughters.

Don Heisel earned a reputation as the “godfather of public administration in the Tristate” [Cincinnati Enquirer 6 March 1988] because of the many governmental officials he mentored at the University of Cincinnati and at Xavier University. Dorelle, who had earned a degree in English from DePauw, added a bachelor’s (1952) and master’s (1965) in education from UC while also taking classes at the Cincinnati Art Academy.

Dorelle taught English for several years in Cincinnati high schools and at the Ohio Mechanics Institute. During the summers she was a fixture at Pogue’s Department Store. Hundreds of Queen City baby boomers likely display pastel portraits of themselves, sketched by Dorelle at her stand in the Pogue’s children’s department. She hated the drab institutional brown walls in her husband’s office, so one day she hauled her pastels over to City Hall and executed a large mural of the Cincinnati skyline, drawn from memory.

UC’s University College recruited Dorelle in the mid-1960s and she flourished there, teaching literature, art appreciation and psychology. With assistance from the Procter & Gamble company, she brought innovative technology into her classrooms with a push-button feedback device that allowed students to register immediate opinions regarding class content. She told the Cincinnati Post [14 March 1968]:

“When students become frustrated with a lecture or feel lost or just plain bored, they can indicate their anxiety by signaling me on the monitor.”

Dorelle’s interest in media and their effects on human communication led her to Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan, known for his books “Understanding Media” and “The Medium Is The Massage.” Among the earliest mentions of McLuhan in Cincinnati newspapers is a reference to a 1966 Evening College class taught by Dorelle to introduce the Canadian theorist’s ideas to Cincinnati.

Simultaneously with her investigations of media and biofeedback, Dorelle dove into what was then known as the human potential movement. She presided over a multi-week UC Evening College class titled “Actualizing Your Potential: A Group Happening.” Enquirer reporter Jo Thomas sat in on the course and reported [21 August 1969] a most unusual classroom experience.

“I will not lecture,” Heisel said. “You will live out experiences, and I will ask you questions. Answer them in your head without verbalizing them. Writing is so slow and the mind works at such speed.”

Dorelle invited the students to form themselves into trains of about nine “cars,” kindergarten-style and take turns being the “engine” or the “caboose.”

“Elderly women hung on to 20-year-olds. Bald men chugged in front of bearded men. Around and around the room the trains went, gathering momentum and enthusiasm. One train burst out of the classroom door into the bright hall, chugging with gusto.”

The explosion of new ideas generated by the psychedelic Sixties energized Dorelle and she launched a series of public lectures to share her excitement. One wonders how her Cincinnati audiences, among such mainline organizations such as the Federation of Jewish Organizations and the Kiwanis Club, reacted to her exposition titled “Turn On, Tune In, Find Out!”

An early adopter of technology, Dorelle acquired a variety of devices to assist her research into altering thought patterns via biofeedback. Among these contraptions were the electromyograph and the alphaphone that made brainwaves audible or visual. She claimed that biofeedback, in addition to curing a variety of conditions from depression to migraines, transported users into a new state of being that she called the Kairos Dimension.

"The Kairos Dimension is nature taking its electronic course through you by providing strategies for amplifying your sensory range,” she announced in her 1974 book, “The Kairos Dimension.”

The titles of Dorelle’s non-credit classes and community lectures indicate the paths her biofeedback research led her down: “Brainfun: Steering Minds In New Directions,” “The Holographic Mind,” “How Biofeedback Opens Social Spaces,” and “How Biofeedback Supports Excitement And Growth.” Here is the course catalog description for one of these classes:

“Feelings of stress, tension and pressure take place only in muscles, never in the chemical-electrical brain that sends out orders. New research gives us a more accurate model of how we guide and control our range of ‘body sculptures.’ Small group exploration of the latest technologies.”

As the Human Potential movement evolved into various New Age philosophies, Dorelle’s biofeedback strategies caught on among that crowd. When the Montreal Star compiled a list of 50 important New Age books in 1975, Dorelle’s “Biofeedback Exercise Book” was featured along with books on transcendental meditation, herbal remedies, gestalt therapy and “The Joy of Sex.”

The nationally syndicated television show, P.M. Magazine, hosted Dorelle in November 1983 as “Cincinnati’s Brain Lady who enables you to see your brain on a television screen.” For a brief period, UC’s radio station WGUC aired a show devoted to Dorelle’s “Kairos Dimension.”

The Heisels divorced in 1977 and throughout the 1980s Dorelle’s public appearances waned. A Body/Mind/Spirit Festival at Avondale’s Unitarian Church in 1988 found her discussing biofeedback along with proponents of shamanism, tarot cards, crystals, chelation therapy and psychic powers.

Dorelle retired from UC and relocated to Plano, Texas where one of her daughters lived. In retirement, she played bridge and painted portraits. She died, aged 79, in November 1996.

[wordsandrobots]

Is it just me or do the pilots that hold onto their suits for longer just generally tend to be stronger than the ones that switch them around? Mika and Gaelio, the ones that held on to the same MS for the longest in the series (Barbatos and Kimaris, respectively) are freakishly powerful with their respective Gundsms. The Bael, being the first Gundam in IBO, stayed with its pilot for the entire duration of the Calamity war. There's some sort of strengthening connection between pilot and machine going on here. The thing with the AV system pretty much being the first system in a mainline show where the pilot has to be physically tethered to the MS might also play into this. Idk this is sort of a thought vomit.

No, it's definitely an interesting angle . . .

Iron-Blooded Orphans isn't strictly the first Gundam series to play with the idea of linking a pilot directly to the 'suit. Arguably, the psycommu from the Universal Century stuff is the earliest human/machine interface in Gundam, albeit one bound up in the psychic powers and suchlike. Mobile Fighter G Gundam introduced a telepresence-style interface allowing martial artists to map their skills on to their machines. Later, Turn A Gundam would include a full-body connector allowing direct operation of a mobile suit, which would be kind of back-adapted into the UC canon via Unicorn's NTD system. All these, however, are presented as exceptional and fairly unique (in G Gundam, the Gundams are their own special class of mobile suit, even if most of the mobile suits we see *are* Gundams).

In IBO, though, the Alaya-Vijnana system is a more widespread, even commonplace technology, allowing the production of cheap, expendable soldiers who require minimal training. True, there is an original or 'perfected' version of the system that accords better with past examples, permitting mobile suits to operate at a superhuman excess. Mostly, however, the A-V is used as an illustration of the impact of military development beyond a national army or clean lab setting. They also have that great visual of the tethering, a far more viscerally arresting image than past attempts to play with the same concept.

This aside, what about the idea of pilots growing stronger the longer they use the same mobile suits?

I think in IBO specifically, there's a few things at play that mean it's worth digging into what we mean by 'stronger'. At a base level, certain mobile suits are described as being more powerful -- the whole point of the Gundam frame is to be exceptionally strong and durable, with two Ahab reactors allowing it to perform fetes beyond other machines. It is however entirely possible for a non-Gundam machine to match or even best a Gundam (Kimaris vs the Grimgerde or Barbatos vs the Reginlaze Julia). Pilot skill is also a factor and on top of that there's the A-V system, which allows for more instinctive control over a mobile suit, making it a physical extension of the pilot. In some cases, this permits novice pilots to overcome those who we can assume to have had much more training and experience; conversely, in others, a skilled non-A-V pilot can overcome pilots using the system -- see the Turbines vs the Brewers, for example.

Then there's the fact Gaelio is a cheating cheater who cheats. The Alaya-Vijnana Type E exists specifically because he comes up short in his fight with McGillis; even with Kimaris' extra oomph, he doesn't have the raw skill necessary to beat his old friend. So he lets Ein's undead brain do the flying instead. The way it's presented, while Gaelio is technically in Kimaris' driver-seat throughout, he isn't actually in control for the majority of its operations during Season 2. The writing is very explicit that the Type E is puppeteering his body, allowing it to exceed those pesky human limitations without resorting to full-on Alaya-Vijnana surgery. Gaelio selects the target, yes, but it's otherwise not *his* strength at play. In fact, the Eve of Vidar side-story shows the system can run entirely out of his control, to the point of tearing off and destroying everything in its path (hence the 'calibration' that keeps Gundam Vidar out of action for the first few episodes of Season 2).

[As an aside, we know the IBO setting has AI technology capable of matching and exceeding human pilots, and that mobile suits have algorithmic control programs assisting with their operation, so it wouldn't be out of the question to do all this without the squishy bits. Certainly, on the face of it, there seems little reason not to just plug Ein's brain into Kimaris and let it have at. But since military AI has a history of working out . . .

. . . poorly, it would make sense for there to be restrictions on its use. It might even be unquestioned best practice to always have a human with their hand on the on/off switch. So whether or not the Type E is actually capable of running a Gundam on its own, Gaelio's presence is probably non-negotiable.]

My point is, Gaelio is functionally a doorstop when the Type E is in operation so can we actually say he's getting stronger as a pilot over the course of the series? He certainly expends a lot of effort and makes personal sacrifices in order to reach a position where he beats McGillis. He has to be physically augmented to use the Type E, breaking his previous moral stance on that kind of thing. And Kimaris itself undergoes a lot of upgrades aimed at combatting McGillis' style of fighting. So in a sense, yes, being Kimaris' pilot for such a length of time means he gets stronger. Yet isn't it more like a lot of compensation for a persistent lack of strength? Gaelio himself doesn't necessarily improve through all this; it's more that he's willing to do things that give him a greater edge.

Which is a good point to turn to our other example. Mikazuki and Barbatos follow a similar trajectory over the course of the show, with the 'suit undergoing constant upgrades and Mika gradually removing the limits on his connectivity with it. True, it's not a case of Barbatos using Mika's body but --

Well, let's back up on that one. Because it isn't presented as Mika becoming a redundant extension of his 'suit. He is always clearly the one in control. However, when he takes . . . let's call it the first-stage limiter off his Alaya-Vijnana system in Edmonton, demanding more so he can beat the Graze Ein, he suddenly knows how to use Barbatos' sword to its fullest extent. Previously, his comments suggest he's at 'pointy end goes in the other guy' level with the thing. After the connection is deepened, he's able to perform incredibly precise cutting strikes and take Ein to pieces. As if the information on doing that was already stored inside the machine and just needed to be unlocked.

Yet the interesting thing is, he doesn't use that skill again. Not directly. Barbatos Lupus' sword is designed more for clobbering than slicing, for all that it *is* a sword, distinct from the clubs he favoured before. Later, he'll return entirely to the mace as his principle melee weapon. Almost as if he took the skills he'd . . . downloaded and then adapted them to his existing strengths.

That seems to be what is happening here. Where Vidar/Kimaris is a deliberately constructed weapon targeting McGillis, circumventing the shortcomings of its pilot, Barbatos is somewhat more organically tailored to act as an amplifier for the man in the cockpit. It's reworked to fit his style. Even in the middle of battling Hashmal, where we might expect residual performance data to come to the fore again, instead Mikazuki's existing impulses go into overdrive, crushing everything in his path with speed and raw power.

So the longer Barbatos is with Mika, the more it resembles him and the more strongly they act as a single unit. Not accidentally, either. Despite the implied contrast above, it's very much something Tekkadan and Teiwaz's mechanics deliberately engineer over the course of events. But it's based on Mikazuki's personality and his preferences (he seems to have looked at Hashmal's tail and gone 'I need that'), rather than with a particular end in mind.

I think if I was going to draw a thesis out of this, it'd be that all this is just an extreme version of something that happens with any pilot. Amida outfights Julieta (someone whose life is literally dedicated to mobile suit combat) and the Julia (a machine at the bleeding edge of 'suit development) in a relatively unexceptional Hyakuren. That is to say, the Hyakuren isn't a very flashy mobile suit. But this *is* a custom model and more importantly, one Amida has been using for a considerable length of time. We know pilots update their 'suits using data from old fights, that they tweak the settings to better fit their abilities, and that they train extensively in simulations. It makes sense for someone like Amida, with likely approaching a decade of additional experience, to be nigh-on unstoppable compared to everyone around her. She's put in the effort. She's gotten comfortable with her equipment. She knows exactly what she's doing.

The Alaya-Vijnana exaggerates this effect, allowing both rapid advancement in ability (the Tekkadan boys are exceptionally quick students because part of the point of the surgery is to circumvent learning curves) and for the pilot to adapt to the machine and vise versa. I think the longer someone used an A-V with the same 'suit, the more they'd be able to understand that 'suit's quirks and direct maintenance to correct or increase them. Ultimately, though, I suspect that's just speeding up a general rule.

Because the A-V is never presented as an instant-win condition. It doesn't trump everything else on its own. Skill still matters. Experience still matters. Ein runs rings around Shino while they're using comparable machines because, A-V or not, Ein trained for years in a Graze; Shino had been using one for a few weeks, at most.

I love that about IBO. It never has any of the tech be magic by itself. You need a pilot willing to go the extra mile and put in the effort to become something truly incredible.

[ella-nd]

Personality and Index Test

Test 1 The Advocate - Opinion and Feelings

16 personality test is not something new to me as I have frequented this site since first discovering it and for those years the results have been the same.

Test taken 3 years ago vs Test taken a few days ago.

Although unfortunately, I couldn't save the recent test that I took on the website itself, I was able to send it to me directly,

this takes into account how we change over time.

My point is that you are not defined by a category of letters or group of people rather this should serve as a way for us to identify our strengths and weaknesses. To 'prove' that I took another test as I was writing this and the results are;

At first, this honesty caught me off guard from intuition (N) to sensing (S) over a few days I didn't know it would change over just days, but judging by the traits it was almost quite the same, then again I would like to reiterate that this test serves as a way for us to identify our strengths and weaknesses.

Test 2 Innovation Mindset Evaluation

BII or The Berkeley Innovation Index created at UC Berkeley's Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & technology, serves as a test for individuals' innovative mindset level utilizing the traits that are linked to innovation capability.

having scored 70% on the test made me question how will this align with a personality test and how it connects to innovation capability.

Let's first map out my weakest points in innovation that is Belief in my own ideas and capabilities, my interest and motivation in innovation or Innovation Zone, and the necessity to increase the speed of communication Trust, and truth to be told I'd really prefer to work around the ideas that are already presented and things that are ready to work on rather than providing ideas directly this could relate to my high percentage in Turbulence that being self-conscious and being sensitive to stress.

Focusing on traits that I have from the MBTI test I change from Intuition to Observation depending on the situation at hand which somewhat correlates to the highest score that I have which is the growth mindset that is necessary for a person to grow, adapt, and innovate or my Comfort Zone.

It's quite ironic that I have a high comfort zone but I also have a high percentage of turbulence, then again I have a high percentage of Feelings relating to social harmony and cooperation.

My final say in all of this is I really don't know how to end a discussion so here's a drawing of my cat on a box, please enjoy :>

[chicanoartmovement]

CHICANO ART MOVEMENT: “Las Manos de Aztlán” art talk with Emmanuel C. Montoya 2023/2024

(Social media capture of Montoya print sale.)

In early May 2023,  the Apachicano artist Emmanuel C. Montoya, Bay Area creative, announced through his social media the availability to purchase his vintage prints. For Robert, it was the prime opportunity to add an artwork by Montoya who for many years has dedicated himself as an artist to the Chicana/Chicano community. Within a few moments and with technology’s help, we were in direct contact with Emmanuel and became patrons to the piece titled “Las Manos de Aztlán” - a linocut print measuring 16 inches by 17 inches and was specifically made for the Chicana/Chicano students and faculty on the campus of University of California at Santa Cruz in 1989. 

A few weeks later and upon the arrival of the print, we unrolled to survey the “Las Manos de Aztlán” piece and were very intrigued to learn more about it. We messaged Montoya regarding the safe arrival of his artwork and inquired if he was available to answer a few questions about the piece itself. We explained to the artist that we wanted to ascertain more information about the “Las Manos de Aztlán” in order to write a future article. 

Montoya replied that he was open to talking more over the phone and we coordinated a future & mutual date to go in-depth about his “Las Manos de Aztlán” print. We called el maestro Emmanuel C. Montoya and we were greeted with warmth y gusto from the artist who welcomed us with a “Que viva la Raza!” After exchanging introductions and stating it was our pleasure to speak with a great community member, artist, elder, and activist, Anita took the lead with this on this one-on-one interview with Emmanuel C. Montoya.

(View of “Las Manos de Aztlán” by Emmanuel C. Montoya, 1989)

When asked about the history and background surrounding the “Las Manos de Aztlán” print, Montoya shared that in 1989 he “was approached by Francisco X. Alacrón, the famous Chicano poet. He was teaching at UC Santa Cruz, at that time, and of course was involved with the Chicano students, at that time. I met him of course in the Mission in San Francisco back then in the ‘80s & ‘70s - very vibrant art community in the Mission at that time. So, he approached me. He’d seen my work and liked my work. He approached me about doing this poster celebrating the Chicano students at UC Santa Cruz. It was the ten year anniversary.”

Emmanuel explained that he featured the maguey at the center of the piece due to la planta’s resilience and adversity against many elements as well as its important symbolization in ancient and contemporary cultures. Montoya happily retold a funny moment of enlightenment when looking at “Las Manos de Aztlán” that “if you looked at the image,” said the artist, “it’s two hands - five and five - which adds up to ten. Of course, I didn’t know that. Somebody else pointed that out to me.” He laughed and continued: “Este so…the idea, of course, is my idea. I thought about the maguey plant  which is an important symbol in pre-Columbian/Mexicano/Chicano history and culture. I have the two hands growing from the maguey plant and it, of course, symbolizes their ten years” as a Chicana/Chicano organization on the UC Santa Cruz campus in 1989.

(Detailed view #1 of “Las Manos de Aztlán”)

When asked why the medium of linocut was used, Emmanuel stated that it was his preferred style since he studied specifically printmaking in the woodblock linoleum cut format both at the undergraduate and graduate levels at San Francisco State University (B.A. 1985 and M.F.A. 1991). He explained: “I sort of studied in school but I was also inspired to study to develop my own style, my own interest, in linocut and printmaking. From the tradition and history of printmaking in Mexico. I was very inspired by the work of a number of different Mexicano printmakers in the mid 19th century, the Mexican Revolution. Out of that came so much culture and art and one of those organizations was Taller Gráfica Popular…artist workshop. It was founded in 1935 by Mexicano, Leopoldo Méndez, he along with a number of Mexicano artists and printmakers established this organization TGP [el Taller de Gráfica Popular]. How I can I say this? For me, it was inspiration, it was you know, it was my roots as Chicano artist, as a Chicano printmaker specifically, and I just, you know, did a lot of, how can I say this…research, read, and went down to Mexico…Mexico City…and meet some of those printmakers…Yes, I was…you know, it was my mecca.” He laughed as he recollected his inspiration which has not waivered at all, and has only gotten stronger since his youth. 

We inquired more about that trip to El Taller and Montoya was glad to share that “it was such an inspiration…such an opportunity to meet some of those artists in person and trade artwork.  And este, in 1985, el Taller was celebrating its 50 year anniversary and so they had a show at Bellas Artes in Mexico City. One of the artists that I specifically meet close to, and became good friends with Alberto Beltran. I met him through another Mexicano artist that was up here [California] in the ‘80s, working with muralists up here, Mexicanos/Chicanos muralists up here. I was introduced to him; Alberto and I became good friends. We communicated, correspondence, and I would send him materials - books, information about the arts as they were happening up here in the Chicano communities. And so, 1984 I got a chance to go down and actually meet him for the first time. And I spent a good time…20 years corresponding back and forth. All those letters and information that he would send me; I saved, I collected, and it is now housed in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley [...] He turned me onto all these other artistas: Arturo García Bustos, Alfredo Zalce - was one of the founders of El Taller and he was in Morelia. I had a chance to go out to Morelia and meet Alfredo Zalce. It was so inspiring and it was so historical for me to meet these artists that I had read about and saw their work. It was a delight.”

(Detailed view #2 of “Las Manos de Aztlán”)

Anita further inquired how that inspiration from visiting the artistic mecca of Mexico, El Taller, helped him with his techniques when making the print “Las Manos de Aztlán” for UC Santa Cruz; Montoya responded: “Yes…in 1989, I have been doing printmaking. I studied and did my graduate work in printmaking and my thesis was also in printmaking and actually, I wrote about the connection with Chicano printmakers and with the history and tradition of Mexican printmakers [...] The tradition of Mexican printmakers at that time, at El Taller, it was important to them to create things that reflect their times, you know. And it was work based in realism, you know, something to work with…to…the work that they did that reflected the revolution or reflected their history as Mexicanos, their history as pre-Columbian, Native peoples. It was all so inspiring and of course, for me being here in the Bay Area. I was born in Texas and came to California, came to the Bay Area in 1964. And have been here in the bay Area ever since. Went to school here; got involved in Chicano Art and Chicano Culture, and the Chicano community. A lot of that was inspired by what was happening in other communities across the country, in the midwest, in Texas, in Arizona, in Southern California area. It was all this, how can I say it, birth of activism…very much.”

Activism and resilience are some of the recurring themes within the vast works by Emmanuel C. Montoya - both big and small pieces. Montoya was glad to hear that CHICANO ART MOVEMENT had visited his works in the Bay Area via trips to:

CHICANO ART visits: San Francisco Public Library, Mission Branch 2013

CHICANO ART MOVEMENT visits: SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), California 2014.

(Detailed view of artist’s signature on “Las Manos de Azltán”)

To close the interview with the great artist Montoya, it was asked if he could share more about the term Apachicano as well as any projects that he was currently working on at his studio, Apachicano Art Productions. Emmanuel stated: “I am Apache and I am Chicano. I guess one day I decided to just put the two together. (Chuckles) My history as an Apache with that culture…many years…a chingado…in the past, I  would say that for 40 years or so that I have become aware that I am Apache, I am Native American and what that means and how that’s reflect in the work that I do as an artist, as a print maker [...] I am retired [and] I work out of a studio; I have been for the past 35 years now here in Berkeley. I have produced quite a bit of work.”

During our final exchange, Emmanuel kindly extended an personal invitation to visit him and his taller in Berkeley and we in return, thanked Emmanuel for the honor to interview him and for the opportunity to learn more about him, his trajectory, his community work, and some of the unknown Chicana/Chicano art history.

[daytura]

Hi! I'm...

daytura, he/him, a 21 y.o. cognitive science major @ (UC) Santa Cruz, CA.

I am interested in...

Building a next-gen theory of cognition

Ergonomic design that puts the human back into the machine

Improving my memory, attention, and social skills

Sitcoms (1960s-1990s), creative and technical writing, casual gaming, and photography

I am not interested in...

Banal discourse, drama, and vitriol

Chronic sneering (we're all cringe here)

Absolutes, lack of nuance

You should also know...

Current self-posts are under the "morning mail" tag -- older ones are under "homegrown by day" and "homegrown by postie"

I sometimes reblog to/from my conflict-theory era @roxytonic blog, but I'm now subscribed to the principle of functional differentiation per Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory

I used to be really interested in personal knowledge management (early 2021 to late 2022), Homestuck (mid 2016 to early 2023), Adventure Time (April 2020), consumer technology (2015-2021) -- feel free to ask about these topics

I'm available on Bluesky, a federated microblogging social network

I sometimes publish longerform to my archival Substack, "Across the heliotropes"

If you're in the Santa Cruz and/or South Bay Area, feel free to reach out! I might even have some coffee in my dorm...

[lhs3020b]

Starfield, an accidental deconstruction?

Oh my, a Starfield post.

So, I just visited a certain facility on Earth, got to read a few terminals and listen to some Fallout-style apocalyptic logs ... and yikes! It feels like the endings to Mass Effect 3 again. (Except the preceding game was mostly a disappointment, so I don't have quite the same sense of chaotic baffled scathing despondent confusion that I did in ME3 - instead I'm more just "rolling my eyes" and "but... but... none of this makes any sense!")

Spoilers, and a rant, below the cut...

Starfield, arguably, is an accidental deconstruction of space-booster/high-frontier ideology. I say "accidental" as the writing/dev team clearly didn't intend it to be this, but consider the following points:

1. The consequences of developing the grav drive were WORSE than if it hadn't been developed. Sure, an asteroid might have hit the Earth eventually, but the ecosystem has survived them before. It didn't survive the sputtering.

(Question: "Who killed the world?"

Answer: "Dr Victor Aiza, arguably the worst human being who ever lived.")

2. There's fuck all wonder to be found in Starfield's galaxy; most planets aren't even that pretty, really, there are no other civilisations and beyond resource-grinds, there's little real point to exploring anywhere.

(That said, hunting alien critters on high-level planets is a good way to farm level ups. Just so you know.)

3. As for humanity's supposed "glorious future in the stars", Akila City has mud roads, the UC is fascist and it's apparently uncontroversial in-universe that the corporate board on Porrima wanted to enslave the ECS Constant colonists! (You can't even raise the events of Porrima with your contact at SSN, which implies that no-one in-universe thinks any of this is remotely noteworthy.)

4. Also, in light of things found on Earth at the NASA ruins, a lot of aspects of the UC's founding seem even darker than they did beforehand. They stopped building colony ships several years BEFORE the atmosphere fell off. How many people were simply abandoned? Millions? Billions? There's even a colony ship on the launchpad that apparently they didn't even bother themselves to finish building, let alone launch it!

5. No wonder the UC created a system where who gets to vote is tightly-vetted - the UC seems to be based on genocide, whether deliberate or negligent. (And absolutely-deliberate on Aiza's part - he KNEW what he was doing, and there was malice aforethought there. The monster.)

6a. As for technology in-universe, the NASA facility, the ECS Constant and any random pirate-infested facility in the "modern" galaxy all have the same hardware and machinery. Apparently technology has barely moved in literally centuries. It may even have declined. (There's no indication that they actually could build mechs again, even if they wanted to, for instance.)

6b. The grav drive technology is apparently basically cribbed from Aiza's artifact-induced visions, so strictly speaking, we didn't even develop it ourselves. We were spoon-fed it by Starborn and their agents.

6c. The supposed "greater good" this is all for, let's remember, consists of borderline-lawless and half-empty planets - even Jemision has pirate encampments within sight of the city walls of New Atlantis! -, a grand total of four cities and a population that presumably can't be more than few million. None of this is better than what humanity had previously on Earth.

7. This social equilibrium may not even be that secure. Entire colonies can collapse - c.f. Londinion or whatever it's called - and there's enough political instability for major and devastating wars to happen. There is no utopia amongst the stars, rather there is chaos!

8. The galactic economy is horribly exploitative - the Eleos Retreat questline actually directly-calls this out, interestingly - and I think you can make a case that the system itself is directly-abusive. (The behaviour of the Trackers Alliance is ... not great ... and that's putting it mildly.) All the downsides of free marketism with no sign of any benefits!

9. Meanwhile, the influence of these Starborn and these artifacts they're obsessed with appears to be entirely-corrosive. Arrogant, authoritarian, dishonest, sociopathic, murderous ... the behaviour of all Starborn I've encountered so far has been baleful.

10. TBH, I'm leaning toward the view that the best thing to do with these artifacts, really, would be round them all up and toss them into a star (hopefully that would get rid of them...)

So in summary, you can argue a case in Starfield's world that the grav drive was entirely-bad. There was no significant threat to escape from, whether asteroids or alien invasion. The grav drive and its developers directly-caused billions of deaths and the collapse of Earth's ecosystem. And the societies that have emerged are small, precarious and (depending on how you interpret some events in the game) may even be beginning to collapse. The grav drive brought no good consequences, and you can argue a case that it would be better if it had never happened. It also made it easier for people to find these awful, brain-warping relics, which I guess must be the Starborn's angle on all this. They toasted Earth so they could collect more shiny stones. (And the Starborn have shown no interest in fixing any of the messes they've made, either.)

It's a deeply dystopic situation.

I don't think the writing team planned to deconstruct high-frontier ideology, but that's effectively what they've done here.

[newtras]

Full plans for meetings - showed an AI

From the day of the day our last title is a day. Two hours later, AI has changed the Tech Beet landscape. CEOs; Businesses; On June 5 on Zelbachs Hall in UC Berkeley, TechCrunch Meetings: AI down the intersection of startups and rapidly progressing ai boom. If If you are building technology, where can the industry stand? Your early bird pass book to save up to $ 210 – Write a book to your team…

[satrthere]

Full plans for meetings - showed an AI

From the day of the day our last title is a day. Two hours later, AI has changed the Tech Beet landscape. CEOs; Businesses; On June 5 on Zelbachs Hall in UC Berkeley, TechCrunch Meetings: AI down the intersection of startups and rapidly progressing ai boom. If If you are building technology, where can the industry stand? Your early bird pass book to save up to $ 210 – Write a book to your team…

[flipiripm]

The Anatomy of UnderChronicle - Advancement and Expansion

With growing and empowering monster ability, this is reflected through several different ways as everything introduced in Undertale is expanded upon- cast, areas, and even simple concepts are stretched to its limits.

The idea for UnderChronicle, along with the idea for it being more hostile, allowing for more battles - it also has the idea of what the Lorax would refer to as “Biggering”- it expands the areas within the world into larger proportions than introduced in Undertale. The base locations have been grown in population and sub-locations.

An example of this are the deep ruins, which are showcased in the Ruins arc. Snowdin Village, a wide, populous version of Snowdin Town, have been added and Snowdin Town being removed, along with the addition of the Snowdin Slums.

The general location of waterfall is grown to account for the addition of the Waterfall Tribe, along with the addition of the Waterfall Dam that holds a potentially area-flooding amount of Water.

Hotlands includes different technological areas, most notably a society for robots specifically hidden where they hope to be utilized one day.

This doctrine also applies to the cast of characters. Each comes with an expansion of notable characters in one or shape. For example, the ruins includes a guardian and two humans who accompany her. Snowdin includes four skeleton brothers, Waterfall has the tribes involved..you get it.

Along with this comes the idea of Advancement. With new ages arriving, technology makes more appearances than it did than Undertale. Tonami’s house (UC’s Toriel Stand-in) includes a Television which she gets hooked to, and due to this has become very blind and wears glasses all the time. Snowdin has many technological appearances, but mostly minor as of writing this. Waterfall’s main enemy, Posidyn, has an eye that has been replaced with a technological one. Hotlands also includes many mechanical ideas- the Main showman is a holographic star instead of a robot, along with other varying elements of the idea of tech.

The expansion of concepts also come into play here. The main example of this is Bastara, a character introduced in the second arc of the story- which is a hybrid of monster and man biologically. Her abilities, traits, and appearance reflects this as a Trait of Perseverance, but one also muddled with the base of Monster’s soul. This also influences her effect with determination- which is explored in hotlands.

Another Race entirely that has been introduced is Mythics - A monster so genetically mutated that they are considered a new species entirely. However, this was not explored yet, I plan to do so in the future.

Because this story is so battle-centric, The introduction of Physical Training is key to this being successful. This is shown through the introduction of LD, Level of Discipline, which is a way to make physical training vital and notable to the plot. This is a way to measure how much

you hurt yourself, meanwhile LV is your capacity to hurt others.

LD, However, Is not the only way our characters improve. By gaining more abilities, as Humans in UC have base Magic potential, they can increase their arsenal and even gain transformations, which happens once throughout the story so far.

With all these new ideas, giving the story a read is highly recommended! Link to the UC Notebook is here!

[fortunerobotic]

5 Arduino Courses for beginners

Whatever your technical expertise, Arduino is an open-source platform that makes electronics more accessible to anyone. Arduino is an excellent starting point for novices, regardless of whether they wish to construct an easy one or delve deeply into the realm of IoT (Internet of Things). 

Arduino Step by Step: Getting Started (Udemy)

For complete beginners, this extensive Udemy course is ideal. From configuring the Arduino program to constructing your first project, it takes you gradually. It is simple to follow up with the instructor's coverage of both theoretical and practical facets of Arduino programming and electronics.

What You’ll Learn:

Setting up the Arduino IDE

Basic circuits and wiring

Writing and uploading code

Simple projects like LED blinking and sensor usage

Arduino for Beginners: Complete Guide (Skillshare)

An extensive introductory course on Arduino basics is available on Skillshare, with a concentration on project-based learning. Because the lessons are divided into small portions, they are simple to understand and follow.

What You’ll Learn:

Introduction to the Arduino platform

Basics of electronics (resistors, capacitors, etc.)

Creating interactive projects with sensors and LEDs

How to use the Arduino IDE effectively

Getting Started with Arduino (Coursera, University of California, Irvine)

This course is part of a larger Internet of Things concentration and is provided by UC Irvine on Coursera. Its main goal is to educate people on the basics of Arduino and how to use it in Internet of Things applications. If you want to understand how Arduino fits into the future of linked gadgets, this is a great choice.

What You’ll Learn:

Basics of Arduino hardware and software

Understanding of sensors, actuators, and interfacing techniques

Working on a variety of beginner-level projects

Introduction to IoT concepts using Arduino

Arduino: Foundations for Beginners (LinkedIn Learning)

The goal of this course is to provide complete novices with a solid foundation in Arduino. Because it is a little shorter than other courses, it is ideal for people who need to start learning right away.

What You’ll Learn:

Setting up the Arduino IDE and hardware

Basic electronics and coding principles

Simple projects like turning on LEDs and controlling motors

Troubleshooting common beginner issues

Introduction to Arduino (EdX, Harvard University)

This course is part of the "Tiny Machine Learning" specialization on EdX and is offered by Harvard University. This course is a great introduction to Arduino and its possibilities in smart technologies, even though the main focus is machine learning at the border of technology.

What You’ll Learn:

Basic concepts of Arduino and microcontrollers

How to interface with sensors and actuators

Developing machine learning models for Arduino-based systems

Building beginner-level projects with Arduino

Whether your goal is to develop intricate IoT systems or dabble in little electronics projects, Arduino throws up a world of possibilities. These five courses are a great place for novices to start since they give you the theoretical knowledge and practical experience you need to advance your skills. Start your Arduino adventure right now by selecting the one that best suits your learning approach!

To know more click here:- Fortune Robotics

[storytelling-2075]

"In Search of Oysters” follows a man in a not-so-far-off future who embarks on an existential journey in a submarine to collect materials for experimental carbon capture. Throughout this journey, he grapples with his former meth addiction addiction, forced recovery, and societal isolation while interacting with an AI companion. The narrative unfolds through a series of first-person journal entries, depicting his complex relationship with the AI, his reflections on his past life, and his evolving perspective on humanity and acceptance. The story explores themes of addiction, the future of climate technology, queerness and the human condition, interwoven with a unique sci-fi element of underwater exploration and environmental preservation that humanizes a climate future.

Elijah Valerjev is from Santa Barbara, CA and an undergraduate at UC Davis studying Moecular and Medical Microbiology, Education and Professional Writing. He is interested in science communication, enjoying the storytelling aspect of science writing, and in connecting research topics to societal issues. He is board editor for the Aggie Trascript Undergraduate Research Journal, in addition to writing as a Science Journalist for the Marine Science Program. Elijah is a reader and a runner.

[sunaleisocial]

Mouth-based touchpad enables people living with paralysis to interact with computers

New Post has been published on https://sunalei.org/news/mouth-based-touchpad-enables-people-living-with-paralysis-to-interact-with-computers/

Mouth-based touchpad enables people living with paralysis to interact with computers

When Tomás Vega SM ’19 was 5 years old, he began to stutter. The experience gave him an appreciation for the adversity that can come with a disability. It also showed him the power of technology.

“A keyboard and a mouse were outlets,” Vega says. “They allowed me to be fluent in the things I did. I was able to transcend my limitations in a way, so I became obsessed with human augmentation and with the concept of cyborgs. I also gained empathy. I think we all have empathy, but we apply it according to our own experiences.”

Vega has been using technology to augment human capabilities ever since. He began programming when he was 12. In high school, he helped people manage disabilities including hand impairments and multiple sclerosis. In college, first at the University of California at Berkeley and then at MIT, Vega built technologies that helped people with disabilities live more independently.

Today Vega is the co-founder and CEO of Augmental, a startup deploying technology that lets people with movement impairments seamlessly interact with their personal computational devices.

Augmental’s first product is the MouthPad, which allows users to control their computer, smartphone, or tablet through tongue and head movements. The MouthPad’s pressure-sensitive touch pad sits on the roof of the mouth, and, working with a pair of motion sensors, translates tongue and head gestures into cursor scrolling and clicks in real time via Bluetooth.

“We have a big chunk of the brain that is devoted to controlling the position of the tongue,” Vega explains. “The tongue comprises eight muscles, and most of the muscle fibers are slow-twitch, which means they don’t fatigue as quickly. So, I thought why don’t we leverage all of that?”

People with spinal cord injuries are already using the MouthPad every day to interact with their favorite devices independently. One of Augmental’s users, who is living with quadriplegia and studying math and computer science in college, says the device has helped her write math formulas and study in the library — use cases where other assistive speech-based devices weren’t appropriate.

“She can now take notes in class, she can play games with her friends, she can watch movies or read books,” Vega says. “She is more independent. Her mom told us that getting the MouthPad was the most significant moment since her injury.”

That’s the ultimate goal of Augmental: to improve the accessibility of technologies that have become an integral part of our lives.

“We hope that a person with a severe impairment can be as competent using a phone or tablet as somebody using their hands,” Vega says.

Making computers more accessible

In 2012, as a first-year student at UC Berkeley, Vega met his eventual Augmental co-founder, Corten Singer. That year, he told Singer he was determined to join the Media Lab as a graduate student, something he achieved four years later when he joined the Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces research group run by Pattie Maes, MIT’s Germeshausen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences.

“I only applied to one program for grad school, and that was the Media Lab,” Vega says. “I thought it was the only place where I could do what I wanted to do, which is augmenting human ability.”

At the Media Lab, Vega took classes in microfabrication, signal processing, and electronics. He also developed wearable devices to help people access information online, improve their sleep, and regulate their emotions.

“At the Media Lab, I was able to apply my engineering and neuroscience background to build stuff, which is what I love doing the most,” Vega says. “I describe the Media Lab as Disneyland for makers. I was able to just play, and to explore without fear.”

Vega had gravitated toward the idea of a brain-machine interface, but an internship at Neuralink made him seek out a different solution.

“A brain implant has the highest potential for helping people in the future, but I saw a number of limitations that pushed me from working on it right now,” Vega says. “One is the long timeline for development. I’ve made so many friends over the past years that needed a solution yesterday.”

At MIT, he decided to build a solution with all the potential of a brain implant but without the limitations.

In his last semester at MIT, Vega built what he describes as “a lollipop with a bunch of sensors” to test the mouth as a medium for computer interaction. It worked beautifully.

“At that point, I called Corten, my co-founder, and said, ‘I think this has the potential to change so many lives,’” Vega says. “It could also change the way humans interact with computers in the future.”

Vega used MIT resources including the Venture Mentoring Service, the MIT I-Corps program, and received crucial early funding from MIT’s E14 Fund. Augmental was officially born when Vega graduated from MIT at the end of 2019.

Augmental generates each MouthPad design using a 3D model based on a scan of the user’s mouth. The team then 3-D prints the retainer using dental-grade materials and adds the electronic components.

With the MouthPad, users can scroll up, down, left, and right by sliding their tongue. They can also right click by doing a sipping gesture and left click by pressing on their palate. For people with less control of their tongue, bites, clenches, and other gestures can be used, and people with more neck control can use head-tracking to move the cursor on their screen.

“Our hope is to create an interface that is multimodal, so you can choose what works for you,” Vega says. “We want to be accommodating to every condition.”

Scaling the MouthPad

Many of Augmental’s current users have spinal cord injuries, with some users unable to move their hands and others unable to move their heads. Gamers and programmers have also used the device. The company’s most frequent users interact with the MouthPad every day for up to nine hours.

“It’s amazing because it means that it has really seamlessly integrated into their lives, and they are finding lots of value in our solution,” Vega says.

Augmental is hoping to gain U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance over the next year to help users do things like control wheelchairs and robotic arms. FDA clearance will also unlock insurance reimbursements for users, which will make the product more accessible.

Augmental is already working on the next version of its system, which will respond to whispers and even more subtle movements of internal speech organs.

“That’s crucial to our early customer segment because a lot of them have lost or have impaired lung function,” Vega says.

Vega is also encouraged by progress in AI agents and the hardware that goes with them. No matter how the digital world evolves, Vega believes Augmental can be a tool that can benefit everyone.

“What we hope to provide one day is an always-available, robust, and private interface to intelligence,” Vega says. “We think that this is the most expressive, wearable, hands-free operating system that humans have created.”

[wordsandrobots]

You mentioned a while ago a Gundam Eligos. I’d love to hear about your… process I suppose (how did you go about thinking it up, what influenced you decision to make it the Eligos, to arm it as you did etc.).

I mention it because I suddenly remembered a little while ago the existence of these two fake Ibo Gundam’s (I think that became popular around the second season) and I got curious on what your perspective would be on them, if any.

I apologise if you already mention this in one of your fanfics. I’m afraid Iron Blooded Orphans just isn’t really the sort of series I seek out fan fiction of (though if that ever changes, your stuff’ll be top of the list).

Oh, yeah, I quite like that fan-art (original links are these, I believe https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/60410296, https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/58286615?), though I feel the aesthetic skews away from IBO's baseline. Halphas in particular doesn't look right to me and I think that's because it's aping UC or 00 style 'suits too closely.

Anyway - no need to apologise; I get having things you don't seek fan fic out for, I'm the same. I'll note for the record that what I'm going to say contains spoilers but with one (highlighted) exception, they're broadly unimportant.

In total, I made up two Gundams, four pseudo-Gundams, and one adjacent 'new' mobile suit for Wishing on Space Hardware. If you'll indulge me, I'll go through the logic behind each of them in order of appearance.

The first Gundam is little more than a placeholder. I literally needed something to fit between Barbatos and Gusion in a line-up of frames for two characters to walk past. Due to misreading a wiki page, I originally labelled this Seere, which obviously is a Gundam that already exists, at the other end of the number sequence. But then I found this list which is easier to follow and renamed it Paimon (ASW-G-09). I described it as a scout model, slender and winged, which doesn't quite fit with the description of Paimon the demon. However, since that demon's rank is King, like Bael, describing it as similar sort of works. Clearly, my thought process on this one wasn't especially deep! The background I gave Paimon was that it had been in a private collector's war museum in a non-operational state. Some rich guy bought it from salvagers and put it on display. This seemed like a reasonable fate for a Gundam frame to have suffered and I used it later to bulk-out a list of extant frames.

The psuedo-Gundams are all copies of Flauros. Very easy! The idea behind them is that following The Incident, Gjallarhorn authorised an attempt to reproduce the Gundam frame with a view to better controlling the technology. A recovered Flauros was used as the template owing to the transformation mechanism, the Dainsleifs, and the fact that Shino very nearly killed Rustal Elion with it, which created a lot of shock-waves (it's a thread in my fics that this has as many long-term consequences as Barbatos' final rampage, while everyone kind of forgets about Gusion).

I hand-waved the difficulty of building new Gundam frames on the notion that 1) nobody ever tried before, 2) the problem of running two reactors in parallel gets solved over the course of the fics, and 3) the resulting 'Flauri' are technically inferior anyway, being less powerful and less resilient compared to a real Gundam frame (a fact that, as of writing, is about to become extremely important). All this said, the chief reason for making them Flauros-copies is thematic: this is a story where Shino narrowly survives and is taken prisoner. It's a big part of his arc that Gjallarhon takes everything uniquely 'his' and twists it for their own ends.

The Flauri start out as unpainted copies of Flauros' short cannon form, using Gjallarhorn railguns. F-4 remains more or less in this configuration throughout; F-3 switches out its guns for a laser cannon and an electro-harpoon weapon designed to disable enemy 'suits; F-2 is given the full original Flauros weaponry; and F-1 is refitted for melee combat with a set chainsaw/claw weapons in place of the stabiliser feet on the arms. Then, as the story progresses, F-2 gets outfitted the same as F-1, which in turn...well, that actually is a spoiler I don't want to share just yet! Point is, Gundam Flauros has a nicely 'neutral' design compared to a lot of the IBO 'suits, so it was very easy to picture how different weaponry would be bolted on. (Also, while Flauros becomes the template for the completed 'suits, development of the frame was based on an impounded Dantalion, so the idea of switchable equipment is there from the start.)

The long and short of this segment: I started with the thematic idea and thought about how far I could stretch it, following the logic I'd established in the story.

The 'new' mobile suit is another output of the above project: a Reginlaze-like frame that incorporates Flauros' transformation gimmick. The Leopard (named for Flauros the demon's common form) is basically an IBO equivalent of a Guncannon and sort of a joke that swings around to being serious. They were rolled out quickly as a way to shore up Gjallarhorn's relationships with the Earth blocs and Mars when there was a risk that the above Gundam-replication might be publicly exposed. As such, they've got a massively sub-par performance compared to actual Reginlazes. However, this doesn't stop a couple being stolen by terrorists and used for long-range sniping operations, or Gjallarhorn deploying their own, higher-spec models as fusiliers. The high-brow justification for this is as an illustration of more consequences of Tekkadan's actions, but honestly? I just thought mashing Flauros' design elements into a Reginlaze would work nicely.

And finally - to address your actual question! - Gundam Eligos.

OK, so, context: Eligos is not actually called Eligos for the majority of the story. It goes under the pseudonym 'Skoll', as in 'Hati and Skoll', the wolves who chase the sun and moon in Norse mythology. Being a 'moon-chaser' is a loaded double-meaning given that its pilot is one of the Tekkadan survivors. Likewise, due to who it is fighting for (a different terrorist group, apparently headed by a new 'Montag'), its modern appearance is patterned on the Grimgerde: red armour, swept-back fins, shields on its arms. That is principally why it has the armaments it does: shorter versions of the rare-metal blades built into the shields (which themselves flip around to reveal guns are the other end, because seriously, how many of those rifles did Mackie throw away?). It's also fitted with a booster pack for the majority of its appearances: big, triangular wings loaded with additional reactors to allow it to move incredibly fast compared even to normal Gundams. This thing is built for hit-and-run, designed to cut through enemy lines as swiftly as possible, because for a long time it's functionally the only mobile weapon this group has at their disposal. While it is later joined by 'Hati' (a Schwalbe Graze variant), that 'suit serves a very different purpose.

[To whit: Hati is equipped with the combination of a Dainsleif launcher with a beam-weapon, intended to negate the resistance effects of nano-laminate. The javelins it fires are hollow and filled with reflectors, creating a path for the beam. As you might imagine, this is a precision weapon to a frankly ridiculous degree, so Hati is functionally static while in operation. Ergo, Skoll has to handle any mobile suits in play while Hati targets enemy ships.]

The reason I'm starting with all this is because it's what came first. I made Skoll up before I picked which Gundam frame it was built around. I wanted a Grimgerde/Gundam hybrid that ran with Tekkadan's 'one man commando unit' concept. I decided it had been recovered with very little of its original armour intact, so its original identity was irrelevant in terms of what it could actually do.

However, obviously I couldn't leave it there! So: which to use?

I wanted a relatively low number, because the backstory I settled on was that this Gundam had been involved in the battle that left Barbatos (ASW-G-08) abandoned on Mars. Strictly, there was no reason to focus on the low-end of the sequence since I roped Flauros (ASW-G-64) into the same scenario, but it was a way to narrow things down. Another thing I used was association with the colour red (because Skoll is very much the 'rival' machine for these fics).

This led me to the page on that same roleplaying wiki I linked above for Eligos. Which is absolutely not an academically rigorous source. I spent a good fifteen minutes just now tracing the source for describing this demon as wearing a red coat (apparently it's from 'The Red Book of Appin' though I don't have the energy this morning to confirm the exact quote). Fortunately, it doesn't really matter because Crowley's edition of the Ars Goetia is sufficient to explain my final reasoning:

ELIGOS — The Fifteenth Spirit in Order is Eligos, a Great Duke, and appeareth in the form of a goodly Knight, carrying a Lance, an Ensign, and a Serpent. He discovereth hidden things, and knoweth things to come; and of Wars, and how the Soldiers will or shall meet. He causeth the Love of Lords and Great Persons. He governeth 60 Legions of Spirits. His Seal is this, etc.

I'm not wedded to the idea that the demonic descriptions need to be a one-to-one match for the machines or the pilots, but there's some fitting stuff here. First, it's 'goodly' as in 'handsome', which is beautifully ironic for a variety of reasons. Second, the lance. As I fleshed out what had happened to this frame, I realised I needed to have it use a spear or lance, because while I'd decided the katana was Barbatos's original weapon, the circumstances I was inventing required it to wield a longer weapon at a dramatic juncture. Therefore, that needed to come from another Gundam. And third, there were the references to knowing the future and matters pertaining to wars.

(Due diligence note: slightly more major spoilers for the fic follow)

.

.

.

This is what solidified the pick. You see, something I omitted from my description of Gjallarhorn's Gundam replication project is that the frames are only part of it. They also wanted the means to reproduce the piloting abilities Tekkadan showed. This led to the creation of the 'Alaya-Vijnana Type Zero', an AI model fed on battle data from people (Shino) who used the A-V. This enables the creation of new Type E systems sans the necessity of wiring dead people's brains into a mobile suit. As a concept, this met with mixed success but it's relevant here because the group operating Skoll got their hands on a copy of the specs and incorporated it into their Gundam alongside a standard A-V. This ramps up the information processing capacities of the system so it can very precisely identify incoming threats and respond accordingly, allowing someone with only a single whisker to operate at the level of someone with two or three. It becomes a 'sixth sense' for the pilot, which fits Eligos' realm of knowledge perfectly.

(And to confirm the obvious: yes, it's a Gundam Wing reference.)

With this established, I back-filled what Gundam Eligos (ASW-G-15) had been like. In appearance, it takes cues from 00's Gundam Zabanya, having an articulated 'cloak' of shield panels used to deflect incoming attacks and let it muscle in close to its target. Its primary weapon was designed for skewering and it would probably have had beefed-up thrusters to enable this mode of combat. For its original incarnation, the connection to 'knowledge of wars' is that its pilot was strategist for Gjallarhorn's Mars contingent.

To summarise the finalised backstory: Barbatos, Eligos and Flauros were deployed to the Chryse Planitia to combat a squadron of Hashmals, but the mobile armours split up, forcing the Gundams to do the same. Flauros ended up using its Dainsleifs at very close range, burying itself along with the Hashmal that would later reactivate thanks to Iok. Barbatos and Eligos fought the remainder but were overwhelmed. In a last-ditch effort, Barbatos used Eligos' abandoned lance to puncture the Ahab reactors on one of the Hashmals. The resulting gravitational upset blew Barbatos into the middle of the desert and ripped the armours to bits. Eligos was caught in the blast and crushed by the wreckage, the frame left repairable but its equipment written off.

And to summarise the answer to your question: there you have it. A mix of ideas that I then matched to the entry in the Ars Goetia I felt fitted best with where I was going. I'm both a 'what would be cool' or a 'what serves the plot best' writer when it comes to creating stuff for fanfic/fanart, but I do like to work through a justification for whatever I invent, even if it doesn't get much focus.

Thanks for asking! I know I've rambled on a lot, but that's simply because it was fun to collate my reasoning in one place.

[Addendum: There is one additional 'new; 'suit I included (past obvious things like Shidens using the two-horned alternate mask from the options set and that one random Hloekk with forklifts for arms), which is the J-class Reginlaze, a high-mobility variant that's basically a normal Reginlaze with Julia-style wing-thrusters on its shoulders. This is mainly by 'rule of cool' logic: overall, I have been trying to resist throwing in new 'suits at every opportunity because I really enjoy IBO not doing that. But sometimes, the urge to be self-indulgent is hard to fight!]

[jcmarchi]

Mouth-based touchpad enables people living with paralysis to interact with computers

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/mouth-based-touchpad-enables-people-living-with-paralysis-to-interact-with-computers/

Mouth-based touchpad enables people living with paralysis to interact with computers

When Tomás Vega SM ’19 was 5 years old, he began to stutter. The experience gave him an appreciation for the adversity that can come with a disability. It also showed him the power of technology.

“A keyboard and a mouse were outlets,” Vega says. “They allowed me to be fluent in the things I did. I was able to transcend my limitations in a way, so I became obsessed with human augmentation and with the concept of cyborgs. I also gained empathy. I think we all have empathy, but we apply it according to our own experiences.”

Vega has been using technology to augment human capabilities ever since. He began programming when he was 12. In high school, he helped people manage disabilities including hand impairments and multiple sclerosis. In college, first at the University of California at Berkeley and then at MIT, Vega built technologies that helped people with disabilities live more independently.

Today Vega is the co-founder and CEO of Augmental, a startup deploying technology that lets people with movement impairments seamlessly interact with their personal computational devices.

Augmental’s first product is the MouthPad, which allows users to control their computer, smartphone, or tablet through tongue and head movements. The MouthPad’s pressure-sensitive touch pad sits on the roof of the mouth, and, working with a pair of motion sensors, translates tongue and head gestures into cursor scrolling and clicks in real time via Bluetooth.

“We have a big chunk of the brain that is devoted to controlling the position of the tongue,” Vega explains. “The tongue comprises eight muscles, and most of the muscle fibers are slow-twitch, which means they don’t fatigue as quickly. So, I thought why don’t we leverage all of that?”

People with spinal cord injuries are already using the MouthPad every day to interact with their favorite devices independently. One of Augmental’s users, who is living with quadriplegia and studying math and computer science in college, says the device has helped her write math formulas and study in the library — use cases where other assistive speech-based devices weren’t appropriate.

“She can now take notes in class, she can play games with her friends, she can watch movies or read books,” Vega says. “She is more independent. Her mom told us that getting the MouthPad was the most significant moment since her injury.”

That’s the ultimate goal of Augmental: to improve the accessibility of technologies that have become an integral part of our lives.

“We hope that a person with a severe impairment can be as competent using a phone or tablet as somebody using their hands,” Vega says.

Making computers more accessible

In 2012, as a first-year student at UC Berkeley, Vega met his eventual Augmental co-founder, Corten Singer. That year, he told Singer he was determined to join the Media Lab as a graduate student, something he achieved four years later when he joined the Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces research group run by Pattie Maes, MIT’s Germeshausen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences.

“I only applied to one program for grad school, and that was the Media Lab,” Vega says. “I thought it was the only place where I could do what I wanted to do, which is augmenting human ability.”

At the Media Lab, Vega took classes in microfabrication, signal processing, and electronics. He also developed wearable devices to help people access information online, improve their sleep, and regulate their emotions.

“At the Media Lab, I was able to apply my engineering and neuroscience background to build stuff, which is what I love doing the most,” Vega says. “I describe the Media Lab as Disneyland for makers. I was able to just play, and to explore without fear.”

Vega had gravitated toward the idea of a brain-machine interface, but an internship at Neuralink made him seek out a different solution.

“A brain implant has the highest potential for helping people in the future, but I saw a number of limitations that pushed me from working on it right now,” Vega says. “One is the long timeline for development. I’ve made so many friends over the past years that needed a solution yesterday.”

At MIT, he decided to build a solution with all the potential of a brain implant but without the limitations.

In his last semester at MIT, Vega built what he describes as “a lollipop with a bunch of sensors” to test the mouth as a medium for computer interaction. It worked beautifully.

“At that point, I called Corten, my co-founder, and said, ‘I think this has the potential to change so many lives,’” Vega says. “It could also change the way humans interact with computers in the future.”

Vega used MIT resources including the Venture Mentoring Service, the MIT I-Corps program, and received crucial early funding from MIT’s E14 Fund. Augmental was officially born when Vega graduated from MIT at the end of 2019.

Augmental generates each MouthPad design using a 3D model based on a scan of the user’s mouth. The team then 3-D prints the retainer using dental-grade materials and adds the electronic components.

With the MouthPad, users can scroll up, down, left, and right by sliding their tongue. They can also right click by doing a sipping gesture and left click by pressing on their palate. For people with less control of their tongue, bites, clenches, and other gestures can be used, and people with more neck control can use head-tracking to move the cursor on their screen.

“Our hope is to create an interface that is multimodal, so you can choose what works for you,” Vega says. “We want to be accommodating to every condition.”

Scaling the MouthPad

Many of Augmental’s current users have spinal cord injuries, with some users unable to move their hands and others unable to move their heads. Gamers and programmers have also used the device. The company’s most frequent users interact with the MouthPad every day for up to nine hours.

“It’s amazing because it means that it has really seamlessly integrated into their lives, and they are finding lots of value in our solution,” Vega says.

Augmental is hoping to gain U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance over the next year to help users do things like control wheelchairs and robotic arms. FDA clearance will also unlock insurance reimbursements for users, which will make the product more accessible.

Augmental is already working on the next version of its system, which will respond to whispers and even more subtle movements of internal speech organs.

“That’s crucial to our early customer segment because a lot of them have lost or have impaired lung function,” Vega says.

Vega is also encouraged by progress in AI agents and the hardware that goes with them. No matter how the digital world evolves, Vega believes Augmental can be a tool that can benefit everyone.

“What we hope to provide one day is an always-available, robust, and private interface to intelligence,” Vega says. “We think that this is the most expressive, wearable, hands-free operating system that humans have created.”