SoManyThingz

Russia aim to make Star Trek-style teleportation a reality within 20 years

If you have been a avid Star Trek follower you may have seen Captain Kirk and Spock beam themselves upto to some different planet as a click of a button. The legendary dialogue by Captain Kirk, ‘Beam Me Up Scotty‘ looks to be reality soon. Russia is embarking on a ambitious Star Trek style teleporatation program and its research program has received financial backing from the Russian government. The program seems to be part of a new Kremlin drive to encourage Russia’s IT sector and high-tech economy.
A proposed multi-trillion pound strategic development program drawn up for Vladimir Putin would seek to develop teleportation by 2035. According to Kommersant, the $2.1 trillion (£1.4 trillion) “road map” for development of the cybernetics market to 2035 also includes developing a Russian computer programming language, secure cybernetic communications, quantum computing, and neural interfaces (direct connections between computers and human brains).
“It sounds fantastical today, but there have been successful experiments at Stanford at the molecular level,” Alexander Galitsky, a prominent investor in the country’s technology sector, told Russia’s Kommersant daily on Wednesday. “Much of the tech we have today was drawn from science fiction films 20 years ago.”
While the concept of people teleporting from one place to another remains in the realm of fantasy, the Star-Trek style target is listed in the National Technological Initiative, a state-sponsored strategic development plan created to fund research and development sector in a number of key sectors.
However, the goal is not as far-fetched as it may sound.
Ilya Massukh, head of the Informational Democracy Fund NGO, told Kommersant that because of science’s rapid development it is necessary to make plans 15 to 20 years in advance.
“It is important to have intermediate goals to have an opportunity to correct the road map and its realization in order not to get involved in knowingly utopian spheres,” he said.
For the first time in 2014, scientists at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands presented that it was possible to teleport information programmed into sub-atomic particles between two points three metres apart with 100% dependability.
Even though teleportation remains a remote prospect, experts believe that the next few decades will likely see significant progress in quantum computing and neural interfaces.
Looking to create its own version of Elon Musk’s hyperloop, The network would link Western Russia to the Far East and the northern reaches of the enormous country, with the first section of the network linking St. Petersburg to Moscow in order to transport cargo the 400 miles (640 km) from Baltic Sea terminals.
Earlier this week, Mr Putin showered praise on Russia’s IT sector when he met a team of programmers from St. Petersburg State University who won the 2016 international “Programming Olympiad.”
Russia not only has a talented programming community but also a small and lively software sector that has created many successful IT companies, including Kaspersky Labs and Yandex.
Western governments are also of the opinion that Russia has leveraged its computing talent to make one of the most impressive state-sponsored hacking and cyber-warfare programs in the world.

This guy refused a whoppping $80,000 offer to sell kanyeforpresident.com to Kanye West

You may already know Kanye West who has been making more news off the stage than on it. West who is also married to one the top celebrities of Hollywood, Kim Kardashian managed to deliver one hit album, The Life of Pablo.
However West has other dreams also. He wants to be the President of the United States of America

However to make a successful bid for presidency, he needs to own the domain called www.kanyeforpresident.com. Sadly, he can own it because its owner refused a whopping $80,000 offer to sell it.
When you visit kanyeforpresident website, you will be taken to the Instagram page of Tramall Ferguson.
Tramall Ferguson is a graduate from Australia and turned a paltry $10 into whopping $80,000, all in a nights surfing. Tramall told ABC that he was purchased the domain for $10 a year ago while surfing aimlessly.
“I was just trying to do something out of the box,” Tramall told ABC’s Control Z podcast.
He then made two impulse purchases: kanyeforpresident.com and petergriffinforpresident.com.
“I thought it was clever and no one had it yet, so I went ahead and did it,” Tramall says, “And then I literally forgot that I had it.”
Tramall’s $10 investment grew tremendously in five months, when Kanye West announced his Presidential bid at the MTV awards. Suddenly, kanyeforpresident.com was HOT internet real estate. Everyone wanted a slice, and the bids started rolling in.
“I got a call from some guy, he was offering me like, $30,000 at first. And I didn’t even know that he was offering me money for it, so I was just like, ‘50 grand!’ And he was like, ‘35’, and I was like, ‘50!’ and he was like, I’ll call you back.
“Then I got a call from Greg at TMZ, and then that’s when I kind of raised my eyebrows.
“Then I started getting crazy phone calls that day with people throwing out offers. The highest one on the first day was about 80 grand.
“[It was] like getting a lottery ticket and just winning. That’s basically what happened,” Tramall says.
Domain names can be a good business if you know how to deal in websites. Otherwise you have to plain lucky like Tramall above or Sanmay Ved who purchased Google.com for $10 during a night surfing expedition. Like Tramall, Sanmay too would have made millions from his buy but he chose to give back the domain to Google for something like $10,000 to be donated to charity.

We can use bacteria as living hard drives to store vast amounts of information state scientists

Instead of those bulky hard drives, soon we would be storing vast amounts of information on a bacteria. Yes, the humble bacteria can store information just like hard drives say scientists.
Harvard scientists led by Jeff Nivala and Seth Shipman have discovered a remarkable way to store lines of code in living bacteria, which can then be passed down to the next generation as genetic information. Based on a new study, bacteria colonies when fed by a series of human-written data can transform tiny cells into living hard drives.
According to Shipman, genotyping the bacteria could easily read the data from these living memory sticks. This type of experiment allows the transfer of 100 bytes of data, almost ten times more than possible with artificial DNA. Previously, the scientists had attempted this experiment but with synthetic DNA. The technique used by the scientists practically tricked the bacteria into copying actual computer code into their DNA without compromising their own cellular activities.
“Rather than synthesizing DNA and cutting it into a living cell, we wanted to know if we could use nature’s own methods to write directly onto the genome of a bacterial cell, so it gets copied and pasted into every subsequent generation,” says Shipman. “But working within a living cell is an entirely different story and challenge.”
“We write the information directly into the genome. While the overall amount of DNA data we have currently stored within a genome is relatively small compared to the completely synthetic DNA data storage systems, we think genome-based information storage has many potential advantages,” Nivala told Gizmodo. He says that these advantages could include higher fidelity and the capability to directly interface with biology. For example, a bacterium could be taught to identify, provide information, and even kill other microorganisms in its midst, or provide a record of genetic expression.
“Depending on how you calculate it, we stored between about 30 to 100 bytes of information,” said Nivala. “Which is quite high compared to the previous record set within a living cell, which was ~11 bits.”
Going forward, the kind of bacteria one uses is important. The researchers used E. coli for this particular experiment that clocks in a fairly respectable storage of 100 bytes. However, certain bacteria, such as Sulfolobus tokodaii may be capable of storing thousands of bytes.
To protect certain bacteria from viral infection, the scientists used the bacteria’s built-in immune system called CRISPR or Cas system. When the bacteria are attacked by viruses, they physically cut out a segment of the invaders’ DNA and paste it into a specific region of their own genome. This way, if that same virus attacks again, the bacteria can identify it and respond accordingly. Thus, the cell passes this information over to its progeny of the bacteria, transferring the viral immunity to next generations.
The bacteria research team discovered that by introducing a segment of genetic data that looks like viral DNA into a colony of bacteria that have the CRISPR/Cas system, the bacteria would devour it and include it in their genetic code. Therefore, the scientists spread the loose segments of DNA into the E.coli bacterial colony that had the CRISPR. They gulped it all up essentially becoming tiny, living hard drives.
The segments used were arbitrary strings of A, T, C, G nucleotides with pieces of viral DNA at the end. Shipman introduced one segment of information at a time and allowed the bacteria do the rest, storing away information like fastidious librarians.
Conveniently enough, the bacteria store new immune system entries in sequence, with earlier viral DNA recorded before that of more recent infections.
“That’s quite important,” Shipman says. “If the new information was just stored randomly, that wouldn’t be nearly as informative. You’d have to have tags on each piece of information to know when it was introduced into the cell. Here it’s ordered sequentially, like the way you write down the words in a sentence.”

"Bleed It Out"

Latent inhibition
In order to even attempt to explain what low latent inhibition is, I feel it is vital that an understanding of the term “latent inhibition” is reached. Latent inhibition is a term used to explain how our observation of a familiar stimulus (e.g. something we see, hear, smell, feel or taste that we’ve had before) takes longer to acquire meaning than a new stimulus. It’s essentially a mental tool you develop in order to experience the world in a manageable way. You use latent inhibition in your day-to-day interactions with the environment.
For example, consider how you experience a doorknob. You are familiar with door handles and how they work, what the purpose of them is and in most cases a door handle wouldn’t interest you enough for you to pay it any notice. Why should you? You know how they work already and have seen them before. Your brain applies the same rule to different types of door handles on all sorts of doors, “It is there so that I can open this door”. You do not question the choice of door handles or look into the finer details in terms of why that door handle in particular was chosen, because if your brain had to do this every time a new stimulus presented itself it wouldn’t be able to cope and would overload. This is why we have Latent Inhibition. It allows us to distinguish familiar doorknobs from unfamiliar doorknobs so we can simplify how we experience the world.
Low latent inhibition
With low latent inhibition, an individual almost treats familiar stimuli in the same manner as they would new stimuli. Think of the details you notice when you see something new for the first time and how it grabs your attention. From those details all kinds of questions may arise in your mind. “What is that, what does it do, why is it there, what does it mean, how can it be utilized” and so on. The more of those questions you are able to figure out or answer, the better your understanding of that stimulus. The better your understanding of that stimulus, the more logical connections you are able to make between that stimulus and others around it. With the use of human memory you are then able to remember which questions you’ve already answered in relation to a particular stimulus, and those answers may then result in more questions. Low latent inhibition will usually result in extremely accurate instincts due to the sheer level of thought, processing and logical connection that has been made previously when faced with a stimulus or multiple stimuli.
So in terms of what we might see, somebody you know who’s generally always worn glasses might approach you having bought a new pair of glasses that look almost exactly the same but for a slightly different logo on the side. You usually wouldn’t notice the change of logo because your brain has almost dismissed the minor details that go with the pair of glasses they wear as ‘unimportant’. It’s your brains way of ensuring that it doesn’t need to constantly process new stimuli that probably won’t have any significance or importance to it. Yes they might wear glasses, but so what? In this example we simply see the glasses then move on.
An example of how somebody with low latent inhibition may see the same scenario could be that they almost instantly notice the smallest changes that seeing the new pair of glasses presents to them via the observation of stimuli, which may then lead to connections being made that people with normal latent inhibition might not make. For example from seeing the new logo, somebody with a low latent inhibition might deduce that their friend had been shopping since the last time they saw them, if they had been shopping they might have also recently received their monthly salary which meant they were able to buy the glasses. Did the friend have some insecurity with the last pair of glasses? If the person with low latent inhibition also knows the surrounding area well (and knows where the stores are that sell new glasses), and they know when the last time they saw their friend wearing his old glasses was (2 days ago), they might be able to work out the exact locations their friend will have been to, and depending upon which food their friend likes, where their friend might have eaten, and depending upon what their friends interests are, which other stores they might have been to after having been paid and what kind of things they might have bought…all from a small change of logo on a pair of glasses.
That same process can be true when any form of stimulus is observed by someone with low latent inhibition, and can be particularly effective in everyday use with regards to problem solving, data analysis, creativity, artistic expression and an infinite number of other possibilities. How do you think somebody with low latent inhibition and a high IQ (so that their brain can handle the constant influx of stimuli), might fare if stranded in a forest for example, miles away from anybody else and with no tools or no help readily available? The low latent inhibition would allow them to not only process and understand all stimuli in their surrounding environment, but to utilize that stimuli to further their goal and to help them adapt.
A great example of how a lot of people work with LLI is their brains naturally work on a “why, why, why, why” basis until they get to the root cause or origins of anything, rules, thoughts, someones intentions, someones actions, machinery etc. An example could be that most people when asked “why do you clean your teeth”, would answer “because i want them to be clean”, “Why”, “because I’m hygienic and i want them to look nice”, “why”, “because if they look nice other people will notice and i want that”, “why”, “because i want to look attractive to other people”, “why”, “so that i can find a partner i guess”. THERE is the root cause, they want to find a partner. People with LLI (at least like my own LLI) are always automatically asking and answering those why questions based on our intuition and perception, and because the intuition and perception of a few with LLI are based on far more stimuli (and therefore details noticed) they are extremely accurate. So in the above example if someone with LLI was asked why they think someone cleans their teeth – their intuition and perception going by the person in front of them would usually instantly result in an answer of “because they want to seem physically more appealing to a potential mate” (we would not starve to death if we lost all our teeth in this day and age). Their brain will have already asked and answered many WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY questions. That same automatic process applies to almost everything someone with LLI comes into contact with.
Further Details
Almost all those who have low latent inhibition are unaware that they are experiencing the world in a totally unique and different way compared to other people. It is generally only through interaction with people who don’t have low latent inhibition and the reactions of those people that brings about the feeling of being ‘unexplainably different’. People may for example laugh at your ideas or the connections that you are able to make or ridicule them (due to lack of understanding on their part), or may look at you as being extremely arrogant or a ‘know it all’. This is because extremely advanced logical connections made by someone with low latent inhibition will often feel like common sense, when in reality those without low latent inhibition wouldn’t even have considered those connections as a possibility. It can also mean that you come across as very intolerant at times (because perfectly reasonable suggestions by people without LLI might just seem stupid to you). There are many different characteristics than can be attributed to the condition; you will find some on the “advantages and disadvantages page” and many, many more on the Facebook awareness group and our forum.
Although low latent inhibition can be an incredible gift it does require a high enough IQ in order for your brain to handle the constant processing of stimuli. Without a sufficient IQ level, having low latent inhibition may lead to various forms of autism. It should also be noted that most autistic people have a lower than normal level of latent inhibition, which is one of the many reasons it is so difficult to confirm an LLI diagnosis. We believe that a lot of cases of LLI are actually missed or misdiagnosed as OCD, ADHD or Asperger’s syndrome but to name a few.
Do I have low latent inhibition?
It is incredibly hard to self-diagnose and we are finding that it is much easier for people to reach a successful diagnosis by meeting others with LLI. There is an exceptionally unique sense of relief when you meet other people who are ‘exactly like you’, your whole perspective on life and living with low latent inhibition will change and hopefully become more comfortable. For those out there with LLI, chances are that most of the difficulties you have faced or have yet to face have been experienced by others with the condition too. A lot of the relief we have witnessed by people who come to the Facebook group stems from knowing why they have felt different, that they are not alone and that there are others like them who are there to help.
We also believe that it is important to acknowledge that there are probably thousands of people if not more who have a lower than usual latent inhibition and that it’s not as rare as people may think. The very rare side to LLI is possessing true creative genius, or not suffering from autism as well as having LLI. Almost all autistic people may indeed have LLI, but that doesn’t mean their brains can handle having it, or that they can utilise it to its full effect. It’s extremely rare to have LLI and be able to use it in the incredibly unique ways in which its benefits can be used throughout life. It’s even more unlikely to have high IQ (over 130), and LLI, no autism and have manageable anxiety levels.
We would also like to stress that LLI is not one specific trait or characteristic and that it’s different in every case. Many might have a lower than usual latent inhibition but in such a way that they don’t feel many benefits and aren’t creating any masterpieces or aren’t extremely gifted in several areas. It is important to not panic or feel down if you think you have LLI but that it’s not making you a genius or that it only seems to give you trouble, as that is far more usual than having LLI and being classed as a genius. To use an example easier to follow, if LLI is chicken in terms of food recipes, ADHD might be salsa, OCD might be barbecue sauce, Asperger’s syndrome might be salad, and your IQ level might be the seasoning. There are obviously many other combinations or other ‘recipes’ you could make, but only a rare few would achieve the ultimate true taste that you’d want.
There are currently no official diagnostic tests for low latent inhibition, and no scale in terms of just how low ones latent inhibition might be. Both of those are things that we are currently working to address and we will be publishing our finds as we continue to delve into the area. We are also researching the work of Carl Jung, Katharine C Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers with regards to personality types, as we wish look into just how different personality types can characterise low latent inhibition.
There are many different interpretations of low latent inhibition out there; some written by those who don’t have it themselves, some copied from an original source and pasted throughout the internet and some that we and I myself cannot relate to. I decided to write the above in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible and to try and clarify exactly what LLI is. Here on the resource and discovery centre you will come across several different descriptions of low latent inhibition, all given by people who live with it and have spent years trying to understand and manage it.