The Million Hour Buffer

I nearly got into a fight the other day because someone said “I’m sorry, you’re not allowed to photograph in here”.

I don’t know why, but this makes me flip out. I usually “express myself” then have to go back later and apologise. This time I merely walked out… so I didn’t nearly get into a fight. Most of the fights I get into involve me getting punched for shooting my gob off… and this didn’t happen this time. I kowtowed to what is essentially territorial pissing by the “owners” of privatised public space.

Enter the dragon:

Although it does more resemble a tamagochi.

It’s a thing.

It’s a thing that you wear on your person (assuming you have one), and it films everything you see… including the fuckfaces that come bustling over and tell you “ooh, you can’t photograph in here”… the Universal Panopticon has (as predicted) dialed up a notch. I seem to recall going on about this years ago. Um…

Here
Here
Here
Here
and
Here

Because sousvaillence is a two-edged sword.

Assuming of course people use the thing… which they might, because it’s on kickstarter, and it’s absolutely fucking aced it already – pulling down $250,000 (they were after $50k) with 36 days to go.

The reason I’m interested in this this time around though isn’t because it royally fucks They That Would Control Where We Photograph, but because the other day Cory Doctorow said something about a hearing-aid with a million hour buffer.

Cos that is going to happen.

Unless we blow ourselves up. Failing that it is definitely going to happen. Prosthetics are going to become better than the body-parts they replace… and in real world-beating ways – like a hearing-aid with a million-hour buffer.

It’s going to completely change the world of domestic arguments. People will wonder how we managed to have domestic arguments without them. I think it will change the way people emote… because at the moment people “replay” things in their heads, and put all sorts of spin and projection onto their memories… with a million hour buffer, that’s going to change.

Who’da thunk it eh? Charlie Brooker turns out to be a visionary genius

As someone somewhere else once said, biotech is going to force us to ask questions about what it means to be human. Eventually something’s going to turn up that really, seriously causes the forces of old and ugly to kick-off. The copy-monopoly wars are nothing… I’d say it’s fairly likely that there will be a Pearl-Harbour-like catalysing event… if for no other reason, than they’ll need it so badly that they have to invent one. They always do.

And the reason for that is that a hearing-aid with a million hour buffer is a hackable device… and it’s one example of a million other devices, with similarly responsible jobs. It’s a computer… and either it’s open or it contains malware built-in… both of these have very serious issues attached… and although we’re fighting tooth and nail against each other right now, dividing along lines of conservative/liberal (ie: rural/urban) morality… later, it’s going to cleave along lines of free/controlled computing.