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AP Article On Cyborg Steve Mann
Vellmont writes "Slashdots favorite Cyborg, University of Toronto Engineering Professor Steve Mann has an AP article about him out. You can read the article on Salon or Yahoo (as well as many other places). The article is well done, and I particularly love Prof. Mann's way of dealing with stores who prohibit videotaping. Slashdot ran a previous story about Prof. Mann's troubles with Airport Security in March 2002."
. . . Welcome our new Steve Mann Cyborg overlords.
I'd like to see a bewolf cluster of...hims.
clifgriffin > blog
He's not a cyborg, unless some of this hardware actually involved surgery or the replacement of biological parts. He's a gargoyle.
Mann, a 41-year-old engineering professor at the University of Toronto, spends hours every day viewing the world through that little monitor in front of his eye -- so much so that going without the apparatus often leaves him feeling nauseous, unsteady, naked.
I think it's called anxiety. I get it alot when i'm away from my computer, I don't have that clickly click click of the keyboard (it's bordering on OCD now)
I would also think the nauseous side effects he's experiencing when he takes his headgear off might be what I suffer from too. I think my eyes are used to focusing on my CRT a foot away from my eyes since i'm in front of the PC so much. Also my cochlea in my ear is used to my head not moving so much. When I go outside I get the double whammy of viewing objects that are not in my average focus, and i'm moving around.
Since the device only covers one eye, it would surely lead to asymmetrical vision problems. Rather quickly, I'd imagine, given how close the image is.
I was at the Toronto Film Festival a few years ago and they'd done a film about him (here)
We walked out on that film. What made the hour we sat in that theatre more offensive than interesting was that this guy wore his gear around, really had no idea what to do with it, and had a huge ego because he had toys on his head that other people didn't. It wasen't that it was a hobby: cool, but possibly inapplicable to real life, but that he thought he was onto something important and he wasen't. I mean, he'd walk into a WalMart and set up a fuss when they told him no cameras in the store.
Why the university keeps him on I have no idea. If someone can tell me, I'd like to know (seriously, I would like to know).
Needle Nardle Noo
When he gets sick from not viewing the world through his video camera, he is suffering a form the same thing people who spend a lot of time in Virtual Reality do...their brains adapt to the slight lag caused by the electronics, and I theorize that they do so quickly because video is a much "hotter" medium...that is, it is like a firehose for the real visual field that the eye is used to. When that lag is eliminated, by taking the display off, it takes a while to adapt back to the visually cooler natural environment...and until it adapts, your inner ear and your visual perceptions are out of sync, and that can cause nausia. ...based upon observations from being the techie at a Virtual Reality Gameing place for 6 months.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Like one of the other posters said, he does appear to have become a little more... pedantic(?) with age. But to be fair, I think this is one of the possible problems with people who are heavily involved with computing.
I've found myself having a greater amount of trouble interacting and dealing with other people as I've become more and more entrenched in computing. I spend about 12-20 hours a day using computers. Whether it's at work (about 7.5 hours spent there. I don't even go out for lunch anymore.) at home (multiple projects going on here with my systems) or at friends and relatives homes (fixing problems or connecting them to my network via VPN). My general day starts at 8:00AM and ends at about 3:00/4:00AM every day with about 95% of it spent in front of computers.
The funny thing is that I find myslef becoming so annoyed with people when they claim to know something about computers, but in the end they only know a little bit about one aspect (web design, hardware, specific lnaguages, etc...). What's really funny is that I am completely aware of the fact that I have (in psychology more than anything else) become the "Unix guy". When I first started working with PCs back in the late 90s, I ran into a few "Unix guys" (which Mann seems to be one of) and they annoyed the piss out of me. They seemed arrogant, impatient and generally unpleasant. I never really understood why. (This was also back when I thought Unix was dying) But after getting annoyed with Windows and moving to Linux, and then working with Sun Solaris, Tru64 and HP-UX... well, I started to see a lot of those traits just naturally manifesting themselves within me. I still work hard to maintain a pleasant personality and I don't wear suspenders or have any facial hair, so I'm not 100% the "Unix guy". But I can now understand their frustrations. Here is the key issue: (Note this in your memory banks for future use in arguments) Many of the concepts of Unix are basic computing concepts applicable to ALL platforms that people on ANY platform SHOULD be made aware of IF they really want to know how to use a computer. The frustration of the "Unix guy" is much like that of the parent that has to deal with the 16 year old who just got a driver's license and now thinks they actually know how to drive. (I'm not saying that all users of other platforms are like this, but many are. I've met plenty of really great Windows admins on the net who know as much about basic computing concepts as any other Unix guy.)
So... I think that Mann's experience is very similar with regard to his take on the world. He's moved ahead in a way. Concepts that are basic to him, are esoteric to the world at large. However, his concepts are a set of meta-realities that many of us have not fully experienced. I will argue that some of us are halfway there though. Just yesterday when I was talking to my wife about my lifelong love of machines over humans, I mentioned to her that to me a computer is an extension of the physical world. Back when I was in high school (1980s) I became instantly aware of how I could move much of what I had in the real world into the computer. That continues to my homelife today. All of my computers here at home are networked and any one of them serves as a head for all the others. I've eliminated cassettes, video tapes, audio cds and dvds from my visible life by keeping them only for backup purposes. They take up less space when they needn't be displayed. Instead, all of my important data is on the home application/file server. I am also slowly moving to a point where the majority of the CPU power will be centralized in a cluster with only a few wireless terminals needed around the house. Ideally one or more of those terminals will be wearable. At that point, the need for much in the way of physical items becomes less useful. What need is there for a television, when I can look anywhere in front of me an watch a movie while surrounded with data that constantly keeps me informed of all things that are per
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