Space tourism by 2014

Space tourism might be available by 2014, if it's up to the Dutch airline company KLM. Conveniently one of Holland's colonies, Curacao, was deemed appropriate to launch a rocketship from for anybody who is willing to pay between 70.000 and 100.000 euros. This first version of the space shot is minimal both in duration and distance: you go up just beyond the boundary of Earth's atmosphere, and spend only about 4 minutes up there before spiraling back to earth.

If you are interested in doing it, wait a few years, fly to Curacao and look for the following futuristic building:



In case you are interested but don't have the money, there is always YouTube:



For those who are going to do it, and think this is worth the money, here is a perspective to perhaps take along: you can see your flight as a mission towards a different state of mind, triggered by the direct perception of the cosmos. This is your chance to awaken directly that you are not just a being in a social group, not even a global being; you are a cosmic being - cosmic meaning here that the whole you are part of has no limits whatsoever. Your perception can now come to confirm this by getting you out of your head and fully in tune with what you are perceiving. It can make you see that what you are perceiving right now is the only thing you'll ever need, and the most profound thing available. But with everything you learn in a specific environment, your task is to bring home what you learned and apply it there as well. You learned that there is a state of perception that brings you in tune with the cosmos; but the cosmos is not just out there beyond our atmosphere - it is here as well. Everywhere, although it is easier visible in more complex things such as trees, eyes, clouds, and the ocean, than, say, in your washing machine or desk lamp. The rocketship is the psychedelic technology that will change your mind and your personality towards the ultimate wholeness.

Designing superhero interactions

Through our increasingly intelligent and interactive technologies, we are making our lifeworld more and more manipulable, giving rise to a world where humans are directly creatively involved in their environment. We understand now that everything is makeable, if only we have a sufficient palette of resources. Through technology we will be able to become superintelligent, superathletic, superhealthy, superhappy, and according to Dutch designer Ivo Daniel de Boer, we can even become superheroes.

Ivo envisions to extend human capabilities through interaction with technological devices, to make everyday events more extraordinary, and give rise to the feeling of being a superhero. He has made his vision tangible in a prototype for a ball that can be moved around without touching it. All you have to do is wear a wristband, and with specific ways of gesturing and moving your hand you can then make the ball move. Ivo positions this device as a toy, though I see many more applications of this so-called 'tele-kinesthetic' interaction paradigm in the future.

Now of course this type of human-computer interaction is quite close to the culmination of the Western ego-drive externalized. Who, at some point in their lives, and especially among boys, does not dream of being the omnipotent cyborg? Yet I don't think that we should avoid this possibility. On the contrary. It's great that dreams, silly as they might be, can come true through our own creative action. It's only when a dream gets realized, that we start seeing its flaws, after all. So I say yes to these developments; let people become almighty, let them become the alphas of the world, let them do whatever they want and can. The consequences will organically unveil themselves, so we'll only have learned from it.

It would surely be fun.

how giant crabs will save us

Experts Agree Giant, Razor-Clawed Bioengineered Crabs Pose No Threat

This is the best parody on techno-progressivism I have ever seen.