That video on the future of our civilization by Dr Michio Kaku today made me think (enough that I was late putting that lamb to roast for dinner).

You see, there is no major transition without violence. And as Kaku says, it’s very possible that we won’t make it, because a lot of people will oppose the changes it brings. Harnessing huge powers requires more security measures, more “globalization” of thought and culture. This is not about just a few cultures not wanting anything to do with it, but even modern people who live in US or EU would protest. Such a transition would put a stress test on the limits of your own open mind.

You see, it might be essential to a Type I civilization, to take decisions that today are thought to be immoral: genetic experiments, termination of infants that are not healthy, pre-determined choice of profession, behavior and thought control. In other words, think of “1984″, times 10. With great power, comes great responsibility, and to ensure order, such measures might be unavoidable. This kind of future frightens all of us, not just “the anti-new world order” individuals. However, think that we already live in such an environment it’s just that the governments of the world don’t have enough technology yet to make our lives even more restrictive: all our communications are recorded, we are watched by hidden cameras on the streets, while the TV is doing its best to shape our opinions.

Even myself, who I try to have an open mind regarding most things (including ugly genetic experiments), I have opposed additional security measures and RFID on humans. So if I can barely take it, how is the average Joe Christian is going to? This is where Kaku rings the bell and says that it’s a very dangerous transition exactly because whatever freedoms you are taking for granted today won’t necessarily be present in such a Type I civilization. And removal of basic freedoms, or loss of culture with one sweep, always breeds guerrilla fighters.

I know that many will say that “humans are meant to be free, people won’t take it and will revolt“, but that’s hogwash. Humans are resilient and know how to intelligently change their lifestyle in order to fit in any ‘New World Order’. No matter how dictatorial such a future might sound to us right now. Once upon a time people would take a dump in a main street and no one would care, today it’s common sense not to do that, but for them, our society would already seem too restrictive. Study sociology on many cultures, including dictatorships, and look how people were living their lives just fine. Besides, thought and behavior control is going to be big business for governments in the future so “terrorism” can be eliminated this way.

So what are we to do? Embrace this frightening change that’s so incompatible with our ideas of how life should be, or fight it? Speaking as a human living in 2008, I’d say “fight it”, meaning only “delay it”. However, if I was to be somehow transported to the year 2108, I would accept that civilization’s traits: I would voluntarily get an RFID and a thought control chip, and whatever else they do for fun in that time. In other words, unless things are really-really shitty and your family starves because of that new economo-political system, don’t bother fighting the status quo. If you have food in your table, it obviously works. But what about freedom, you ask?

In the popular mythology of our time, the Greys don’t have independent thought, not because they were originally incapable of having one, but because their socio-political system have removed all their independence from them through genetic or artificial means (think of them as a kinder, gentler Borg). This way there are no “terrorists” among them thinking that “ooh, Jeez, we should stop doing anal probes to humans, it’s not ethical“. Instead, they all do what their collective thinks it’s the right thing to do for their species: “we should do anal probes to humans so we collect that bacteria that live in their gut that make these great face lotions“. And that’s that.

We have to look at the problem from a 1 billion feet high, in other words, we must get the big picture and ask ourselves: what’s more important in the long run: our personal freedom, or the survival of the species? If we don’t make the transition to Type I, WE DIE as a species. There’s no way around this, it’s just how it is. And when I say “we die”, I mean in the long run. Simply starting a nuclear war and killing off a few billion people in order to make humans go back to a prehistorically simpler way of life doesn’t solve the long run survival problem as the sun is bound to eat up Earth eventually.

What if, the only reason why every species is pre-encoded with a survival instinct, is not just to survive here and now, but to survive the species for the eons to come? What if, when the universe goes bust, from all the billions and trillions of intelligent civilizations in the universe, only a handful of them “make it” to another, warmer universe and continue to live on? Kinda like the millions of sperm shot from a male, but only one makes it and continues to be living in a female’s egg. Wouldn’t that be a noble reason to advance ourselves? Wouldn’t ultimate survival be the reason to lay off personal freedoms in order to preserve life itself, and the history of a whole universe that was?

Dr Michio Kaku Ph.D, astrophysicist and theoretical physicist, professor in the City University of New York, book author and science TV personality, on several cool topics. If you are available for 15 minutes today, watch the following:

* Michio Kaku on the future of civilization, explaining the different Types of it and why we are currently living in the most important part of the human history. Kaku is explaining in terms of economy, technology and sociology the steps we will take to become a Type I civilization (aka “New World Order”) and how people who oppose this are simply “terrorists living in fear unable to embrace change”. Must see.

* Michio Kaku on aliens and physics, explaining how limited SETI is, and how limited we are as a species to be remotely interesting to aliens that pass by. Kaku, like most modern scientists, obviously believes in the existance of intelligent life elsewhere, and he thinks that it’s possible that we have been visited, it’s just that we are too stupid to even take notice that we have.

* Michio Kaku on String Theory, explaining how the string theory might be “our” only way out of a dying universe in a few billion or trillion years.

* Michio Kaku on the possibility of Time Travel, and why there are no time paradoxes (e.g. killing your mother before she gives birth to you) as the harmony of the multiverse will create an alternative timeline in order to cater for the paradox.

* Michio Kaku on Artificial Intelligence being 100 years off as of yet and people who say otherwise are just way too optimistic. I fully agree with him on his opinion, and it’s something that I have discussed before.

“Only 5 percent of consumer electronics products returned to retailers are malfunctioning–yet many people who return working products think they are broken, a new study indicates,” says PCWorld.

This just shows how important usability is and how bad the industry is providing good usability on their products. Usually, that’s because the engineers and designers who design these products never use them in their personal life and therefore they never use the devices properly. Every time I happen to review a bad product the first thing that comes to mind is “I don’t understand. Don’t these people actually use their products?“.

It’s just sad that companies don’t realize that the money they must spend on usability is a good investment as the fewer returned devices would mean more money for them. I am going to bet that the iPhone is among the lowest returned devices, because it rocks when it comes to usability and user expectations.

The following is all over the news today: Prince licensed and sang Radiohead’s “Creep” at the Coachella festival. An unauthorized fan recorded it, posted it to YouTube, and Prince’s label had it taken down under the DMCA. Radiohead disagrees with the take down and say “Well, tell him to unblock it. It’s our… song.”

Well, yes and no. Radiohead quite possibly own the song (usually major labels own or co-own the music). However, the performance belongs to Prince. He has every right to bar professional photographers or fans from recording/snapping/posting his performance, as the Coachella festival is a private event that he controls. Radiohead, YouTube, and the fans, have absolutely nothing on this. It is up to Prince to allow this performance to be public or not — and there is even a case where he might not even have this right at all, if his contract for the song doesn’t specifically grant full broadcasting rights to Prince. So basically, even if Prince has or has not the right to himself post an audio/video of his performance online, he has the law on his side when he takes down other’s videos of his performance. Because his performance, that’s 100% his, he controls it, and it’s copyrightable. Therefore, this take-down request was NOT a DMCA abuse, as some people wrote online.

Now, of course, this is how the law is. That doesn’t mean that the whole of copyright law is nice or adjusted for modern times. I personally find Prince to be a jerk. I never liked him, even when I first heard of him in the early ’80s. I much prefer Robert Downey Jr. I think. Yeah.

UPDATE: Radiohead should feel like asses right now. “Creep” is NOT their song. Radiohead wrote and performed the song, but both the original recording performance and the copyright of the song belongs to EMI. In other words, like I said above that it’s usual with major labels, that was “work for hire” that they did, and they have ZERO say in this Youtube case. In fact, not even EMI has a say.

UPDATE 2: Matt says that Radiohead has 33% controlling interest on the song.

Geeks.com, known for their cheap mp3 player offers, sent over the SanDisk Sansa e280 MP3 and WMA player for a small review. The device has 8 GB of storage internally and it also supports microSD cards.

The device is smaller than an iPod Mini, but bigger overall than a Nano. It has a 1.8″ TFT screen, FM radio, a microphone, while it sports USB 2.0 support. The device came to us with its USB cable and earbuds. No documentation or other accessories were included in this white box release. The battery is rechargeable via the USB cable and it manages up to 20 hours in ideal conditions. The e280 has a “record” button on the side, proprietary USB port on the bottom, microSD slot on the other side, and a 3.5mm headphone jack and a “hold” button on the top. There is also a lanyard/wrist-wrap hole near the top.

The device turns on/off with its “power button” below the main wheel menu. This button is also used to go back to home screen if you press it lightly during usage. The wheel button is actually a blue LED wheel navigates fast on long lists of media when turned. I personally found the blue LED incredibly bright, more so than what it was needed as it was overshadowing the look of the LCD. Inside and around the wheel there are buttons that help you navigate or are playback controls.

When booted up, you can select from a scrolling menu the main function: pictures, video, music, audio recording, FM radio, or settings. The device is really easy to use, although some navigation usability is not as good as the iPod’s. More over, if you get back to the music list and you click on the song that’s currently playing, it starts playing back instead of getting you to the “playback screen”. In fact, I found it very difficult to get back to the playback screen after you have wandered around on other parts of the system. It is details like these that show that Sandisk is simply not as good as Apple in designing interfaces.

Nevertheless, the music quality was perfect, and overall this is a usable system. There is a ratings screen, album artwork, EQ and custom EQ, and various ways to sort music. The Pictures menu allowed for background music while enjoying a slideshow, while on the settings you could find screen, language, volume limit and more. The only really unfortunate part on that media player is the video format it accepts: MJPEG in the MOV container. This white box doesn’t come with software so there is no video converter software included, and using free tools to encode in the exact video format that this player supports is a challenge.

Overall, this is a worthy mp3 player. But if you try to use it too much, rather than leaving it playing on the background while you are working or exercise, you might stumble into a few usability issues.

Rating: 8/10

Here’s how to export from CyberLink PowerDirector 7 for Vimeo’s 720p HD service. The produced files are also compatible with the PS3 and XBoX360.

Honestly, I don’t know why some big bands even try to shoot video clips when Apple does it so much better for them. Download the 480p higher quality version here.

If you are a geek and you don’t watch “Lost”, you really don’t know what you’re missing. Proof about the geekiness of “Lost”:

* Michio Kaku, one of the very well known figures in the scientific documentaries on TV and professor of physics at the City Unversity of New York, wrote a review of Lost’s last night finale and discusses the crazy science of Lost.
* Mythbuster’s Adam Savage wrote an article too, mostly about the practicality of blowing things up on the show.
* Richard Muller is a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley and he also wrote an article about last night’s “Lost”.
* And then there’s this article discussing the rest of the scientific or pseudo-scientific parts of the show.
* And of course, particle accelerators!

On the less positive side, Harold Perrineau, who was written off from last night’s season finale, is pissed off about his demise. Not only he is talkative about it, but he even pulled the race card to defend his anger. Well, Harold, it was you who wanted to leave “Lost” originally for another show. And when that other show didn’t get picked up by the TV networks, you wanted back. Well, the world of “Lost” is not a kind one, but your death was noble and your character was redeemed. So take it and be happy with what you got.

Here’s a review of last night’s finale. Personally, I found it a bit boring. The helicopter scenes have been done before, it felt old to me. And that god damn frozen donkey wheel…

One of the best HV20 videographers out there, Ben, posted this impressive air show video. HD version here.