Lifeboat Foundation

Research can seem bland to us laypersons. But, Marko Vukolić shares many of my research interests and he exceeds my academic credentials (with just enough overlap for me to understand his work). So, in my opinion, his writing is anything but bland…

Vukolić started his career as a post-doc intern at IBM in Zurich Switzerland. After a teaching stint as assistant professor at Eurecom and visiting professor at ETH Zurich, he rejoined the IBM research staff in both cloud computing infrastructure and the Blockchain Group.*

As a researcher and academic, Vukolić is a rising star in consensus-based mechanisms and low latency replicated state machines. At Institut Mines-Télécom in Paris, he wrote papers and participated in research projects on fault tolerance, scalability, cloud computing and distributed trust mechanisms.

Now, at IBM Zurich, Vukolić has published a superior analysis addressing the first and biggest elephant in the Bitcoin ballroom, Each elephant addresses an urgent need:

Continue reading “Blockchain Scalability: Proof-of-Work vs BFT Replication” »

Recent evidence suggests that a variety of organisms may harness some of the unique features of quantum mechanics to gain a biological advantage. These features go beyond trivial quantum effects and may include harnessing quantum coherence on physiologically important timescales.

Quantum Biology — Quantum Mind Theory

Philadelphia, PA, USA / Moscow, Russia — Bioquark, Inc., (http://www.bioquark.com) a life sciences company focused on the development of novel bio-products for regeneration, disease reversion, and healthy aging, announced the commercial approval of naturally derived Bioquantine food ingredients in the Eurasian Customs Union (formerly known as the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia). Moscow based, Lakmus LLC, a diversified investment company with business interests in pharmacies, restaurants, and real estate, collaborated with Bioquark Inc. on the regulatory approvals.

“We are very excited about this successful regulatory approval,” said Ira S. Pastor, CEO, Bioquark Inc. “The commercialization of Bioquantine food ingredients, including functional foods, drinks, and dietary supplements, represents another important step in our continued evolution as a company focused on a broad range of products and services in the regenerative healthcare space.”

Throughout the 20th century, natural products formed the basis for a majority of all pharmaceuticals, biologics, and consumer healthcare products used by patients around the globe, generating trillions of dollars of wealth. However, many scientists believe we have only touched the surface with what the natural world, and its range of organisms, which from a health and wellness perspective are much further advanced than human beings, has to teach us.

Continue reading “Bioquark Inc. Announces Approval of Bioquantine Food Ingredients in Eurasian Customs Union” »

Bioquark Inc. (www.bioquark.com) Interview in MoneyWeek

Read whole story: http://moneyweek.com/who-wants-to-live-forever/

Continue reading “10 companies that want to make chemotherapy easier for patients — Bioquark Inc.” »

Bioquark, Inc., (http://www.bioquark.com) a life sciences company focused on the development of novel, natural bio-products for health, wellness and rejuvenation, has entered a collaboration whereby Forest Organics LLC & I-Beauty Charm LLC, a unique, integrated facial and body cosmetology facility, and their state-licensed, highly skilled skin care specialists, will be utilizing novel, natural Bioquantine™ extract complexes as part of their spa procedures, as well as providing consumer access to a range of proprietary skin care products (http://www.forestorganics.life).

“We are very excited about this first company collaboration in the area of beauty care and cosmetology,” said Ira S. Pastor, CEO, Bioquark Inc. “It is another step forward towards the wide applicability of our natural combinatorial bio-products, across a broad range of health and wellness segments, as well as future franchise opportunities.”

The integrated Forest Organics LLC & I-Beauty Charm LLC model was conceived by local Tampa business women, Nadia Goetzinger and Tatyana Reshetnikova, to offer a new generation of products and services related to skin beautification and rejuvenation.

Continue reading “Bioquark Inc. Announces Commercial Cosmetology Relationship with Forest Organics LLC & I-Beauty Charm LLC” »

In preparation for writing a review of the Unabomber’s new book, I have gone through my files to find all the things I and others had said about this iconic figure when he struck terror in the hearts of technophiles in the 1990s. Along the way, I found this letter written to a UK Channel 4 producer on 26 November 1999 by way of providing material for a television show in which I participated called ‘The Trial of the 21st Century’, which aired on 2 January 2000. I was part of the team which said things were going to get worse in the 21st century.

What is interesting about this letter is just how similar ‘The Future’ still looks, even though the examples and perhaps some of the wording are now dated. It suggests that there is a way of living in the present that is indeed ‘future-forward’ in the sense of amplifying certain aspects of today’s world beyond the significance normally given to them. In this respect, the science fiction writer William Gibson quipped that the future is already here, only unevenly distributed. Indeed, it seems to have been here for quite a while.

Dear Matt,

Here are the sum of my ideas for the Trial of the 21st Century programme, stressing the downbeat:

Continue reading “The Familiarity of the Future: A Look Back from 1999” »

Predicting an economic “singularity” approaching, Kevin Carson from the Center for a Stateless Society writes in The Homebrew Industrial Revolution (2010) we can look forward to a vibrant “alternative economy” driven less and less by corporate and state leviathans.

According to Carson, “the more technical advances lower the capital outlays and overhead for production in the informal economy, the more the economic calculus is shifted” (p. 357). While this sums up the message of the book and its relevance to advocates of open existing and emerging technologies, the analysis Carson offers to reach his conclusions is extensive and sophisticated.

With the technology of individual creativity expanding constantly, the analysis goes, “increasing competition, easy diffusion of new technology and technique, and increasing transparency of cost structure will – between them – arbitrage the rate of profit to virtually zero and squeeze artificial scarcity rents” (p. 346).

An unrivalled champion of arguments against “intellectual property”, the author believes IP to be nothing more than a last-ditch attempt by talentless corporations to continue making profit at the expensive of true creators and scientists (p. 114–129). The view has significant merit.

Continue reading “'Abolish artificial scarcity': @KevinCarson1” »

My sociology of knowledge students read Yuval Harari’s bestselling first book, Sapiens, to think about the right frame of reference for understanding the overall trajectory of the human condition. Homo Deus follows the example of Sapiens, using contemporary events to launch into what nowadays is called ‘big history’ but has been also called ‘deep history’ and ‘long history’. Whatever you call it, the orientation sees the human condition as subject to multiple overlapping rhythms of change which generate the sorts of ‘events’ that are the stuff of history lessons. But Harari’s history is nothing like the version you half remember from school.

In school historical events were explained in terms more or less recognizable to the agents involved. In contrast, Harari reaches for accounts that scientifically update the idea of ‘perennial philosophy’. Aldous Huxley popularized this phrase in his quest to seek common patterns of thought in the great world religions which could be leveraged as a global ethic in the aftermath of the Second World War. Harari similarly leverages bits of genetics, ecology, neuroscience and cognitive science to advance a broadly evolutionary narrative. But unlike Darwin’s version, Harari’s points towards the incipient apotheosis of our species; hence, the book’s title.

This invariably means that events are treated as symptoms if not omens of the shape of things to come. Harari’s central thesis is that whereas in the past we cowered in the face of impersonal natural forces beyond our control, nowadays our biggest enemy is the one that faces us in the mirror, which may or may not be able within our control. Thus, the sort of deity into which we are evolving is one whose superhuman powers may well result in self-destruction. Harari’s attitude towards this prospect is one of slightly awestruck bemusement.

Here Harari equivocates where his predecessors dared to distinguish. Writing with the bracing clarity afforded by the Existentialist horizons of the Cold War, cybernetics founder Norbert Wiener declared that humanity’s survival depends on knowing whether what we don’t know is actually trying to hurt us. If so, then any apparent advance in knowledge will always be illusory. As for Harari, he does not seem to see humanity in some never-ending diabolical chess match against an implacable foe, as in The Seventh Seal. Instead he takes refuge in the so-called law of unintended consequences. So while the shape of our ignorance does indeed shift as our knowledge advances, it does so in ways that keep Harari at a comfortable distance from passing judgement on our long term prognosis.

Continue reading “Steve Fuller's Review of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari” »