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Linux on the Brain
LinuxNews.com writes "Linux is surfing the curls of the human brain. In a project designed to
study cerebral cortex topography as part of the Human Brain Project,
Linux is being used to assimilate massive amounts of data--and bring the
project in under budget."
After reading that article, a question popped into my head: What would we use said data for? My PERSONAL fantasy is that, eventually, we will get to a point where you will simply have to THINK a command, and your mind-reading-hat (or goggles, you get the idea) interprets the neurological impulses, and gives your computer the appropriate commands..
A curious idea, to be sure.. but does anybody else out there think this will EVER happen?
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' CitizenC
' WebMaster, PlanetQ3F
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I wonder how many Bogomips Linux running on a brain would get?
;-)
-Karl
I haven't messed with NFS support, over here we use AFS instead.
Transarc's AFS Clients are decent, and I recently tried using arla instead. (so I could upgrade kernels, and also try out the open source solution...) At first, it was *really* slow, but I traced that back to an ethernet card problem. Now it runs even faster!
I know there's also the Coda project, which sounded really cool, but I guess that isn't so far along?
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I suppose they may save some money on the OS but anyone has an idea on the amount of hardware and cost to get this project up and running? Anyone has any idea on the resolution of those brain scanners?
Could someone clue me into the Natalie Portman references?
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Second furious debugging night :I When the machine cannot do it, you have to simulate it.
Besides, it'd be more interesting to have the machines decode, transfer and encode mind movements between people than just obey - they will do both, eventually.
"^X^S - oops, where am I?"
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
"programmers to simply install and go, whereas purchasing software for proprietary machines usually involves budget issues and delays while purchase orders are processed."
I've noticed the same thing at my company. When I show the CEO a list of GPL software my department will be using, and each one says "price = free", and the highest cost items on the budget list are a few printed manuals at $49.95, it is amazing how quickly things can be accomplished.
I'm already a little worried about what she's going to do after I post this. I knew I should have gone to a computer cluster...
This is your brain on Linux
Any questions?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
you must be new here...
they actually originated (to the best of my knowledge) at segfault. natalie portman is queen amidala in Star Wars, EP1, right? ok. well, at first it was "natalie portman topless". that wasn't good enough so they added the naked. also, the petrified reference is about her being stoned so she'll have sex with the 1users.
They probably don't hook up into PC hardware pretty well
On the analysis and viewing side having commodity hardware price/result is what is pushing the use of free software; what's keeping them back mis weak points such as NFS. But go read the article, it's no use to repeat it here.
BTW, I hold the opinion that Linux NFS really is pretty poor at times. Especially when you unhook a mounted laptop
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
One of the problems with neural networks (both in biological and artificial systems) is that slightly different setups can yield surprisingly different results. There have been several studies on twins (genetically equivalent), and they exhibit very different brain activity patterns (not that surprising, look how many identical twins also differ in build, personality, etc).
You can try a similar thing with simulated artificial neural networks: set up a simple back-propogation neural net with different initial conditions and give them the same training data. Now watch for subtle differences in the output. Bigger neural networks give even less subtle (ie often rather large) differences. So, the machine would have to be trained for an individual.
Just as your neural network can learn to process its own data uniquely, so should a simulated artificial neural network (See link for a good intro). Our detectors of today (NMRI) would only need to be improved by an order of magnitude (I've used a NMR machine in a lab that was very similar to Purcell's origional experiment and have seen the improvements in commercially available systems for hospitals). Our processing power would have to be improved by several orders of magnitude (I am basing this off of papers I've read on large simulated artificial neural networks ~1,000,000 nodes, which are still dwarfed in complexity by the human brain).
So, given enough training, a computer/NMR device ought to be able to learn your commands and distinguish between subconscious and conscious desires.
On the other hand, some philosophers thought that given enough training that men would eventually understand women...
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
Does that mean I've got a copyright? Better yet, does that mean I've got a retroactive first-post? :) Anyway, I posted this on March 31 at night, under the "Apache ported to PalmOS" story:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ------ (01 Apr 2000) Rafael Kaufmann of the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is proud to announce the completion of his latest and boldest porting effort so far. Kaufmann, who calls himself "a transhuman optimist-slash-Evil Genius", has ported the the Debian distribution of the popular open-source operating system Linux, in its entirety (6 CDs), to a custom-built biochip residing in his skull, and accessible only through an Ethernet port in Kaufmann's left temple. The biochip is able to interact with Kaufmann via voluntary electrical impulses in certain neurons of his brain, providing what he calls a "Direct Neural Interface".
The Linux box in Kaufmann's head was operating normally, until an unidentified hacker found a previously unknown security hole in the networking code, which enabled him to acquire root priviledges to the poor cyborg's brain, which resulted in Kaufmann traveling to Hollywood, invading the home of teen movie actress Natalie Portman, stripping her clothes off and using obscure techniques to petrify her, all the while pouring hot grits down his pants. When arrested and interrogated by the Los Angeles Police Department, Kaufmann replied only with repeated shouts of "I 0wn j00, K@ufm@nn!!! F1RST P0ST!!!!! L1nuz SUX!!!!!!!!!" The brutality of this occurrence makes evident the danger of trusting such a necessary network component as your nervous system to an unsafe, open-source, easily hackable operating system as Linux.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Well Well, That was a nasty shock to get so late in the evening!
actually linux has more hardware support than most other cheap and/or good OSes so its a helluva lot easier to do it on linux. that said, i think choosing linux over IRIX is a big mistake in this case ..some of the machines we use for CT stuff are IRIX boxen with 64 CPUs each and IRIX scales really well...load average of 20 and the machine feels like its a linux box with a load average of 0.0 ... that with 80 people logged in all number crunching.
GNU/Brain. Hasn't Stallman claimed credit for that too?
I fear the day when we all use thought transmitted computers and the advertising agencies secretly scan our brains to customize advertising for us.
Oh, that's been done. It's The Matrix...no, wait, The Matrix is a sink of computer power, so where does the computer power to image The Matrix come from?
Just a thought (somewhat OT I guess)
And this helps us...how?...We still don't know how to...we still have no idea exactly how it works...we don't know EXACTLY what those brain cells control...
And the way you figure those things out is precisely by doing this sort of research. How do you think we reached the point of understanding how the liver or heart works? By saying, "We don't know how it works - why bother studying it?"
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
See Subject.
Once I dreamed that I was reprogramming my brain.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Okay, troll, you can stop now. The stock shot up from all the sheep who decided that LNUX was going to suddenly get tons of money from nowhere, then fell as they realized how wrong they were. That has nothing to do with Linux's success as an operating system.
And I don't think it takes that many funds to run Slashdot.
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No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
I'm not surprised that identical twins have distinct brain patterns. And that they differ in personality.
But it seems like you're forgetting about a none-too-surprising social phenomenon. People like to consider themselves unique. So identical twins will differentiate themselves.
Studies on separated twins have discovered spooky similarities between them, from job to house to significant other. The assumption is that separated twins don't need to differentiate, and so take the path they would naturally have taken, had they been singles.
So university departments try very, very hard to spend every last dime, because if they don't, they'll have a lot less dimes to spend next year.
;-)
That, I doubt not, is true. But, using free software may not be so bad because, since the department isn't having to spend all that money buying software, the department can use it to buy more equipment/upgrade existing equipemnt, buy more printed materials, expand, etc..
In other words, they can catch up on all of the things that they haven't been able to catch up on due to having to dish out money for software, etc.
Heck, they could send me the money and I'll find something to do with it.
Insert mind here.
That 5% thing is a myth. It's based on the worst kind of bad science:
"Well, we've lopped off this part, and the monkey seems fine. Let's lop off this part."
We use much more than 5% of the brain. But the brain can adapt to damage, so perhaps only 5% of it is crucial.
OT:I always heard 10%.
A bad one, that's what. :(
- Jeremy Fuller
Well, just like Caldera and Andover.net, VA Linux's stock is now below its IPO price (Another 11 points, and RedHat will join them in this dubious honor). So it obviously wasn't just the day-trading sheep, but also the companies themselves which failed to realize the utter lack of value in Linux.
Oh, and how many funds does it take to run Slashdot? You don't think they went out and bought some shiny new equipment and more bandwidth that they'll soon be struggling to afford? I can't wait for the firesale! :)
One word: Segfault. Also, the machine would get a huge case of depression and low self esteem, kinda like Marvin.
"It's the little touches that make a future solid enough to be destroyed" --William S. Bourroughs
This morning my computer booted up, had some breakfast, read every newspaper, and 20 miliseconds later forked its thoughts for the day.
At lunch, it took 4315 miliseconds of to recharge its capacitors, and went back to crunching data. In early afternoon, process identity 1, alias "init" sent SIGSTOP to all its thoughts and demanded some buiscuits and tea from the console operator, before it would continue.
The computer also has an insane need for 2 litres of water every day, which is causing some worries to us, lest the computer short out.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
My computer's been attending Dataholics Anonymous for over 2 years. Every day it writes down hundreds of pages of other data addicts problems in /var/log/addictlog. I'm going crazy. Someone help me!
:P
OFTC: By the community, for the community
I've worked on Deep Brain Stimulation protocols for Parkinson's disease and Dystonia at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. I was the computer geek in the Neurology Department, designing databases and managing imaging systems.
As a result, I'm no expert in Neurology. However, I can tell you that the mechanisms involved in Deep Brain Stimulation, are much better understood than you might imagine. They are largely based on earlier lesioning procedures, such as pallidotomy and thalamotomy (removal of parts of the Basal Ganglia - deep structures in the motor cortex). Accurate neuroimaging is crucial in procedures like these.
If you would like to know more about the science behind the experiments mentioned in the story, or others, I don't recommend you spend your time looking at the web pages. Very often, they are written by guys like me for the benefit of patients and benefactors (or just to show off cool technology), and have no intention of explaining the hard science. You are better off reading the academic journals at your local medical library or visiting the appropriate department at your local university or teaching hospital.
BRENT ROCKWOOD, EST'd 1975
Linux on the Brain.
(BTW, just in case your mouse moves over to the -1 Off-topic button, I'm just trying to parody the typical Slashdot response to an article like this...)
The Poll Mastah
Poll Mastah
I do agree that the article was very light on the actual details of either how exactly this will advance neuroscience, or how, specifically, Linux is being used for things like high-end graphics, which would be interesting to hear about. Actually, the whole article came off as a kind of a nice-but-fluffy OpenSource equivalent of a marketing spiel.
On a bit of a related note, I'd just like to point out another a genetics study using Linux for it's main number crunching. At the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, we have a dual Xeon box running through numbers to find linkage for the gene(s) causing the autoimmuno disease lupus. Since it's been deployed, our average analysis time has but cut to a fraction and our uptime beats the heck out of our NT domain master... The only problems we've had (aside from porting everything from OpenVMS) have to do with poor NT integration (likely non-RFC compliant dhcp serving us) and a lack of personell to run it! Just something that I thought I'd mention
It doesn't matter if the most prestigious scientists in the world say they are running a Linux Cluster ran off of a 286, a Sega Master System, a toaster and a Sony Walkman; and that they expect to find a cure for cancer, for 12,000 dollars, and in two years.
No matter how established and mainstream Linux becomes among people who actually know what they are doing, the future of computing belongs in the hands of a few big stupid corporations ran by marketing hacks.
Yeah, they are way way stupider then us.
Yeah, they are in charge anyway.
Get used to it.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Why did you use frames on the homepage (and _only_ on the homepage I might add) ?
I didn't use frames and don't really care for them. There have been some changes to those pages since I was there. (And in response to the other individual, I use nedit).
My PERSONAL fantasy is that, eventually, we will get to a point where you will simply have to THINK a command, and your mind-reading-hat (or goggles, you get the idea) interprets the neurological impulses, and gives your computer the appropriate commands. It's already here! Open up an xterm and enter the command "mr" (fmind read) and then think of what you want the computer to do. something like "mail John".. mr will then attempt to read your mind, and execute the appropriate commands. Unfortunately the human mind has not developed to a stage that it is capable of broadcasting thought, so mr usually replies: $ mr mr: command not found oh well
OK guys... before I start, since I'm gonna do a bit of explaining, I should give some credentials . I'm a 2nd year PhD student, studying cognitive neuroscience. I've also spent a year in Akita, Japan, doing neuroscience experiments at a research hospital there. IT was, as it happens, the best year I've ever had in my life. :>
The hospital I was at - Akita Noukekkan Kenritsu Kenkyuu Sentaa (Research Centre for Brain and Blood Vessels) is one of the three research sites involved in the Human Brain Project. The other sites are in Massachusetts and Copenhagen, Denmark. I helped set up the stimulus generating computer (an old Macintosh Quadra 850) for the HBP project, but I left the country after the first two experiments had been done.
>These people are making "cool 3d views of a brain" and telling you absolutely frigging nothing about what they're going to do. What the >hell can you do with information like that?
OK, if you read the article closely (and do a bit of background research), they're performing *cortical inflation*, and not just funky 3d mapping. Cortical inflation is sort of like sticking a bicyle pump into your brain, and pumping up your cortex - eventually you push out all the deep fissures and gyri that make up the convoluted surface, and the detail that's in those areas of brain that are normally hidden from view is displayed on a nice sphere.
How is this helpful? Well, the organization of brain areas makes a lot more sense when you inflate the cortex. It's a very recent fad in neuroscience - people are seeing, for the first time, why certain areas seem to be near each other. And the cortically inflated image of the brain is much easier to figure out.
>We still don't know how to a) communicate with the brain (subconscious) directly, or b) understand why it is we only use 5% of its >capacity.
An AC further down posted the fallacy of the 5% deal. And believe it or not, communicating the the subconscious brain directly is not the be-all-and-end-all of brain science. There are other things that are just as important to know. Hell, we don't even know *what* the subconscious is exactly, let alone where.
>We know the general area that controls movement, and if they shock it it makes the shaking less violent. But we don't know EXACTLY
>what those brain cells control, or where we should shock them on a cell-by-cell basis. We just shock it and it fixes it. Thats about as >scientific as it gets, no?
>This project the article centers on will provide a nice road map. But what good is a road map if you don't know where you're going?
A very valid point. The time when we know exactly what each individual cell in the brain does is a very, very, very long way off. Why? Because _everybody's brain is dofferent_. A cell in a particular location of my brain that deals with directed attention, for example, is _not_ going to be int he same place in your brain. So it's a bloody hard job to figure out what goes where.
I'll counter your last comment with a similar analogy. A road map doesn't just tell you how to get to one place - ite tells you _all_ the places you can go. A map - specific to one person though it may be - is a very useful tool. It shows you areas in which you might want to explore more, and more deeply. It's definitely not a waste of time and money.
moderators mark this up ... it is not only interesting but informative too!
When will someone port Linux to the human brain?
The one and (thankfully) only,
LafinJack
we are building a religion
a limited edition
we are now accepting callers
for these pendant key chains
Unless you are reading a popular science magazine like Scientific American, reading journals is not the most efficient way to learn about a particular topic in science. Journal articles are used for efficient communication between experts and are generally neither informative nor interesting unless you have an extensive background in the relevant field.
You'll avoid a lot of confusion and frustration by reading the appropriate section of an undergraduate textbook first, and then reading journal articles only if you need more details.
A widely used, and not very heavy, neuroscience text is
Essentials of Neural Science by Kandel, Schwartz and Jessell
If this works how long will it take me to whip up something real interesting... I can see it now...but you'll can't, half of yas is underage... *bad cowboy grammar intentional* this is what happens when I try to think with too much blood in my caffiene stream.
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Crudely Drawn Games