Personally, I prefer Reddit to Digg. They’re both good for some interesting stories, but the user quality is ultimately what determines the quality of any Web 2.0 application. Sooner or later, someone will engineer a Web 2.0 app that is designed to elminate what kills everything Web 2.0 - popularity. As soon as you invent something people like, the message spreads. As more and more people sign up for your thing, whether it be Digg, Reddit or one of the other social sharing sites, the quality of the body of material start to devolve.

You end up with stories like this one, where top users are whoring themselves out.

InvespBlog has published what it claims is an interview with a top Digg user - someone who has a 34% success ratio in getting submitted stories to the home page of Digg. The Digg user isn’t named - he or she says “I have a reputation to withhold” (we know what they meant).

In the interview the user talks a little about how he’s able to get stories to the home page of the Digg news site and drive significant traffic back to the destination, despite the increasing popularity of the site. There isn’t much that will surprise people, the user simply does a lot of networking and reciprocal voting with other top users.

But the user also claims to charge for his services. A submission is $300-$500 based on the “quality of the article,” with no additional “promotion.” If you want your article promoted it’s a flat $700 fee. An additional $500 is charged if it gets to the home page. That’s a grand total of $1,200 for a home page story, and you don’t even get guaranteed results.

I don’t mind an honest whore. The problem with Digg is that the quality of the content is devolving. I’m not sure if there is a point at which a social content sharing app like Digg reaches it’s climax and then starts the long inexorable slide downhill. In Digg’s case, I would cite the frequency and types of stories that have become popular of late. Lots of socialism oriented screeds, pictures of naturally occurring objects that look like genitalia and a bunch of conspiracy theory sensationalism blended together with more and more banal and vitriolic comments have left a sour taste in my mouth.

I’m looking forward to the first elitist Web 2.0 app that allows me to vote other brands of elitists off the social virtual island.

Scientists have created the first rat cyborg.

Every time the robot nears an object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by means of the electrodes, the researchers explained in a statement released today by the University of Reading in England. In response, the brain’s output drives the robot’s wheels left and right, so that it moves around in an attempt to avoid hitting objects.

The robot has no additional control from a human or a computer, the scientists state. Its sole means of control is from its own brain.

“This new research is tremendously exciting as firstly the biological brain controls its own moving robot body, and secondly it will enable us to investigate how the brain learns and memorizes its experiences,” said the university’s Kevin Warwick of the School of Systems Engineering. “This research will move our understanding forward of how brains work, and could have a profound effect on many areas of science and medicine.”

Factor in Moore’s Law. I am envisioning ratbots providing airport security screening as one possible application. Only a few years away. TSA cyborgs with a prediliction towards stealing your cheese will decide whether or not you get to travel. No worries, they’ll have a badge to make it all seem more normal to you.

Transhumanist technologies are going to explode in the next two to three decades. We already have a crude artificial heart on the market. Now it appears that an artificial pancreas is just around the corner.

Today, people with diabetes have a range of technologies to help keep their blood sugar in check, including continuous monitors that can keep tabs on glucose levels throughout the day and insulin pumps that can deliver the drug. But the diabetic is still responsible for making executive decisions–when to test his blood or give himself a shot–and the system has plenty of room for human error. Now, however, researchers say that the first generations of an artificial pancreas, which would be able to make most dosing decisions without the wearer’s intervention, could be available within the next few years.

Type 1 diabetes develops when the islet cells of the human pancreas stop producing adequate amounts of insulin, leaving the body unable to regulate blood-sugar levels on its own. Left unchecked, glucose fluctuations over the long term can lead to nerve damage, blindness, stroke and heart attacks. Even among the most vigilant diabetics, large dips and surges in glucose levels are still common occurrences. “We have data on hand today that suggests that you could get much better diabetes outcomes with the computer taking the lead instead of the person with diabetes doing it all themselves,” says Aaron Kowalski, research director of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Artificial Pancreas Project.

The artificial pancreas project is good news for diabetics. However, barriers to implementation remain.

Technologically, the remaining obstacles for researchers are those of refinement–for example, constructing algorithms that are exquisitely honed to predict in which direction glucose levels are moving and at what rate. Other researchers are working on sensors that can monitor blood glucose over an extended period of time (currently, sensors must be replaced every three to eight days) and with improved accuracy.

Despite the fact that much of the technology is on the market, researchers must still prove to the FDA that their system is safe when combined with the algorithms, and that if anything goes wrong–if a sensor goes wonky or the insulin pump clogs up–the computer can sense it and either set off an alarm or turn the whole system off.

I’m irritated anytime the FDA is mentioned in a news article. Personally, it’s not clear to me that this organization has helped more people than it hurts. FDA rules slow down the medical technology development process and make it much more expensive. If I ever become a chronically ill patient, I’ll goddamn well seek the medical treatment I want regardless of FDA rules. If I have to leave the United States to get a particular treatment, so be it. I own my own life.

At least that’s what Aubrey de Grey believes. I want to believe it as well. I am not interested in dying at this time. Transhumanists may not be in the media spotlight now, but it’s likely the future will change that.

…James Hughes, an administrator and instructor at Trinity College in Hartford, is a leading transhumanist theorist. The executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which he co-founded when he was the executive director of the World Transhumanist Association, Hughes has written several books on transhumanist ideas, including Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future.

It would appear that Hughes, a buttoned-down professor-type with a close-cropped goatee, is dealing with ideas better suited to science fiction than the real world. However, he traces transhumanist history back to old, earth-bound traditions.

“It goes back to the enlightenment, about 400 years or so,” Hughes said. “And when you go back to those original ideas, you see a number of things emerging, among them the notion that science and tech can be applied to human affairs, and things can be engineered and improved upon.”

While the average earth dweller of 2008 may feel uncomfortable with the idea of engineering a human being they will still pay for LASIK surgery or a hip replacement. If they could safely and cheaply replace the human heart with a model that wasn’t prone to spasms we call heart attacks that often lead to death, most people would get the replacement put in without much serious consideration. In the next two decades, we should see a massive increase in the number and type of life extending, life quality enhancing surgeries available. This is assuming we can avoid universal health care, which will cause stagnation, in my opinion. I am unaware of pioneering surgeries recently developed in France or Britain. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that government socialized health care is statist in nature.

There is no reason not to expect to live 150-200 years if you are 20 today and in good health. Assuming you’re not a partner in a meth lab, wearing a soldier’s uniform or engaged in extreme sports, you have a shot at living a very, very long time in comparison to people born 50 years ago. Depending on social upheaval and battles over the world natural resources you might live to see the middle or the end of the millenium.

Many people are not interested in this idea, particularly those who have not yet faced death and found it to be a distinctly unpalatable notion. For those among you who do not believe in one or another of the various death cults of the world, I highly recommend keeping an eye on the activities of the Methuselah Foundation.

Stem cell research is just the beginning of the end of aging.

What lesson are we supposed to learn from the story of a Thai teenager who robbed and murdered a taxi driver while trying to live out the fantasy world of Grand Theft Auto IV?

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai video game distributor halted sales of “Grand Theft Auto” on Monday after a teenager confessed to robbing and murdering a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the controversial game.

“We are sending out requests today to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games,” Sakchai Chotikachinda, sales and marketing director of New Era Interactive Media, told Reuters.

“We are also urging video game arcades to pull the games from service,” Sakchai said. An 18-year-old high school student, now in custody pending further investigations and a trial, faces death by lethal injection if found guilty of robbing and killing a 54-year-old taxi driver with a knife at the weekend.

There are several lessons to be learned.

1. Governments are reactionary - when something bad happens, government’s solution is generally to limit individual choices, which is not a solution to the problem.
2. Individuals make choices, video games do not. Video games will get blamed anyway.
3. Parents have no responsibility for their children. They are not even mentioned in the article. It is the state’s job to raise the young, discipline them and inculcate moral values into their young impressionable minds.

Grand Theft Auto is a morally bankrupt game. That much is true. But the inability to distinguish between a software product developed to entertain adults and reality has little to do with Grand Theft Auto. People play Grand Theft Auto precisely because they can do things in the game without the same consequences that take place in real life. Pulling the game from store shelves will only create more buzz and a black market for the game. No product in the history of humanity has ever been successfully banned by authorities. Grand Theft Auto isn’t going to be any different. Teens who want to play the game will still find a way.

One thing is certain - more teens are going to want to play Grand Theft Auto IV now that the game has been banned in Thailand. If you’re a parent, take the time to pay attention to what your kid is using as a moral compass. If you aren’t giving him or her a complete education, chances are good that he or she is lost and wandering, and absorbing values you might not think are healthy.