Surgical Instruments Tracking Systems Market Expected to Witness a Sustainable Growth over 2028 – News Description

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Surgical Instruments Tracking Systems Market: Introduction

Surgical instruments tracking systems have been accessible for use in medical field for several years. Today, surgical instruments tracking systems have turned into a need. The previous four to five years have witnessed major changes in tracking systems. Rapid advances in instruments tracking systems technologies such as nano-engineering and opto-electrical engineering have created new avenues in recent years. Need for unobtrusive and automated tracking systems will keep demands lucrative in coming years.

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The report by TMR Research takes a closer look at recent trends impacting the revenue potential of various players and offers insights into imminent investment pockets in key markets.

Surgical Instruments Tracking Systems Market: Key Development

Some of the most prominent competitors operating in the competitive landscape of global surgical instruments tracking systems market include

Most players are embracing a few organic and inorganic and natural systems, for example, new launches and product advancements, mergers and acquisitions, and collaborations alongside expansion on regional and global scale for serving the unmet needs of users.

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Surgical Instruments Tracking Systems Market Dynamics

Rising instances of surgical instruments left in the human body after medical procedures and instrument scattering are the main considerations driving the evolution of the surgical instruments tracking systems market. As indicated by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), the casualty rate of held surgical articles is around 2.0%. Along these lines, the requirement for cutting edge innovations, for example, 2D scanner tags and RFID to follow the held instruments while the patient is still in the task theater, is rising. This factor is anticipated to push the surgical instruments tracking systems market.

Rising popularity of instruments tracking devices by emergency clinics is another main consideration boosting the market development. Following healthcare gadgets and stock administration during work cycle including medical procedure, post-medical procedure, sanitization, and storage systems are a portion of the serious issues supervised by emergency clinics. Along these lines, they are embracing new technologies to follow these gadgets and systems, which thus is relied upon to stimulate the market.

A portion of the regular instruments that are accidently left in a patients body during medical procedure consists of sponges, blades, needles, electrosurgical adapters, clamps, scalpels, safety pins, scissors, and towels. Among these instruments, towels are probably the most common thing left behind by mistake. Surgical instruments left in patients bodies will in general cut veins and puncture blood vessels that might lead to internal bleeding, creating a pressing need for technologies to track these instruments.

Expanding requirement for stock administration and usage of Unique Device Identification (UDI) guidelines by the FDA are foreseen to drive the market. Innovative headways and initiatives by governments to adopt these gadgets is foreseen to additionally boost the market in the coming years.

Surgical Instruments Tracking Systems Market: Geographical Analysis

In 2018, North America contributed sizable revenue shares in the global surgical instruments tracking systems market. The launch of unique device identification (UDI) framework by the U.S. FDA for accurately identifying proof of medicinal gadgets through their distribution networks is one of the central points credited to this lead. Moreover, the presence of well-established healthcare infrastructure, fast adoption of cutting-edge products, and high per capita healthcare consumption in other developed regions, such as Europe, are foreseen to fuel the global surgical instruments tracking systems market.

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Surgical Instruments Tracking Systems Market Expected to Witness a Sustainable Growth over 2028 - News Description

Ceramic Nanotubes Engineered As Thermal Antennas With Heat Radiation Control – Market Research Feed

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Scientists have designed artistic nanotubes, which go about as recieving wires that utilization light-matter motions to control heat radiation. The structure is a stage toward another class of earthenware production that work all the more proficiently at high temperatures. Credit: Purdue University delineation/Xueji Wang

The gas turbines fueling air ship motors depend on fired coatings that guarantee basic soundness at high temperatures. In any case, these coatings dont control heat radiation, restricting the exhibition of the motor.

Analysts at Purdue University have designed earthenware nanotubes that act as warm reception apparatuses, offering authority over the range and course of high-temperature heat radiation.

The work is distributed in Nano Letters, a diary by the American Chemical Society. A delineation of the artistic nanotubes will be included as the diarys valuable spread in a pending issue.

By controlling radiation at these high temperatures, we can expand the lifetime of the covering. The exhibition of the motor would likewise increment since it could be kept more smoking with more confinement for longer timeframes, said Zubin Jacob, a partner educator of electrical and PC building at Purdue.

The work is a piece of a bigger quest in the field for a wide scope of materials that can withstand higher temperatures. In 2016, Jacobs group built up a warm metamaterial made of tungsten and hafnium oxide that controls heat radiation with the aim of improving how waste warmth is collected from control plants and manufacturing plants.

Another class of pottery would develop approaches to all the more proficiently use heat radiation.

Jacobs group, in a joint effort with Purdue teachers Luna Lu and Tongcang Li, assembled nanotubes out of a rising fired material called boron nitride, known for its high warm soundness.

These boron nitride nanotubes control radiation through motions of light and matter, called polaritons, inside the earthenware material. High temperatures energize the polaritons, which the nanotubes as recieving wires at that point couple proficiently to active warmth radiation.

The radio wires could carry the capacity to quicken the radiation, perform upgraded cooling of a framework or send data in unmistakable ways or wavelengths, Jacob said.

The analysts intend to build increasingly clay materials with polaritonic highlights for a large group of various applications.

Polaritonic pottery can be down changing and we need them to be utilized generally, Jacob said.

###

Reference: High-Temperature Polaritons in Ceramic Nanotube Antennas by Ryan Starko-Bowes, Xueji Wang, Zhujing Xu, Sandipan Pramanik, Na Lu, Tongcang Li and Zubin Jacob, 3 Octobe 2019, Nano Letters.DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b03059

This exploration was performed in the Purdue Discovery Park Birck Nanotechnology Center and is bolstered through Nascent Light-Matter Interactions, a program by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The program is driven by Purdue Universitys School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

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Penguin Computing to deliver Magma Supercomputer, one of the First Intel – AiThority

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Penguin Computing, Inc., a leader in high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and enterprise data center solutions and services, announced that it, along with partners Intel and CoolIT, will deliver the Magma Supercomputer to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Magma system was procured through the Commodity Technology Systems (CTS-1) contract with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and is one of the first deployments of Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 series processors with support from CoolIT Systems complete direct liquid cooling and Omni-Path interconnect.

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Magma is based on RelionXE2142eAP compute servers. Magmas 752 compute nodes are each configured with dual Xeon Platinum 9242 processors, with a theoretical peak of over 7 TFLOPs and 293TB of system memory calculating an RPeak of 5.313 PFLOPS. CoolIT Systems provides the complete direct liquid cooling solution for Magma through a blind-mate coldplate loop design which captures +85% of the server heat through CPU, DIMM and VR coldplates, allowing the servers to operate at maximum efficiency. The CoolIT subfloor piping, in-rack manifolds and row-based CHx750 CDUs deliver the required heat exchanging capability and coolant flow to support all racks.

Funded through NNSAs Advanced Simulation & Computing (ASC) program, Magma will support NNSAs Life Extension Program and efforts critical to ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nations nuclear weapons in the absence of underground testing.

The convergence of HPC and AI is here today. We are excited to deliver Magma, an HPC system that is enhanced by artificial intelligence technology, said William Wu, Vice President of Hardware Products at Penguin Computing. We are seeing artificial intelligence permeate every industry and, specifically in HPC, we can now deliver a converged platform that allows AI to accelerate HPC modeling for our data scientist customers.

We continue designing new, leading edge solutions with our partners for the DOE NNSAs CTS-1 contract. Magma is another example of a great shared effort resulting in an HPC cluster designed and built to meet new demanding workloads. We anticipate this system to qualify for the November 2019 Top500 HPC list, said Ken Gudenrath, DOE Director at Penguin Computing.

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Penguin Computing is committed to Expanding the worlds vision of what is possible! The Magma cluster brings a new level of synergy amongst our clients, partners and Penguin Computing. One of our primary goals with Magma is to bring new mission technologies and capabilities to Livermore National Labs and its user communities, said Sid Mair, President of Penguin Computing.

Magma is a major leap forward in HPC and AI convergence that could only be achieved with trusted engineering collaboration between Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Penguin Computing, and Intel, said Phil Harris, VP and GM of Intels Datacenter Solutions Group. With up to 96 cores per node, massive memory bandwidth, and integrated AI acceleration with Intel DL Boost technology, the Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 processor will provide a powerful foundation for Lawrence Livermore National Lab to enhance its ability to achieve its mission goals.

The Commodity Technology System efforts at NNSA represent a very cost-effective way to manage our workload at each of our three laboratories, said Mark Anderson, Director for NNSAs Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing and Institutional Research and Development Programs. In this model, commodity-based systems take on the bulk of day-to-day computing, leaving the larger advanced technology capability systems available for only the most demanding problems across the Tri-Lab community. This is just an example of the sophisticated approach NNSA is taking to manage demanding workloads in the most efficient manner for the country.

Magma represents a timely addition to our CTS machines in order to address the significant surge in demand coming from NNSAs major Life Extension Program, said Michel McCoy, LLNLs Advanced Simulation & Computing program director. It is essential to have available a supply chain that can respond essentially instantly, delivering state-of-the-art technology in just a few months to meet pressing national security needs. We look forward to moving this system into production as fast as possible.

Read More: Jama Software Boosts Team Collaboration and Eases Review Cycles with Updates to Jama Connect Review Center

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Penguin Computing to deliver Magma Supercomputer, one of the First Intel - AiThority

Supercomputer simulation reveals how galaxies eat gas and evolve – Sky News

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A new simulation from a NASA supercomputer has revealed how galaxies evolve by eating the gas spread through space around them.

When stars reach the end of their life cycle they can explode as a supernova, blowing gas formed of elements made inside the star back into space.

This gas and dust collects into enormous clouds which can eventually collapse, leading to anywhere between dozens to tens of thousands of stars forming almost simultaneously.

Without showing the light from the stars themselves, the NASA simulation depicts gases moving in and out of an evolving galaxy over 13 billion years.

It shows gases in a range of colours, from purple to yellow, to indicate the density of the gas where purple is the lower density gas and yellow is higher density.

There are blue and red colours which indicate the temperature of the gas too.

What the supercomputer simulation reveals is how colder, denser gas flows in along cosmic filaments to the spots where stars are forming.

When these stars explode as supernovae they blast galactic superwinds out of the galaxy, and these are the less dense hotter gases in the simulation.

"As there is more star formation and thus more supernovae at early times, these winds become calmer as the galaxy evolves," according to NASA.

"Unlike bright galaxies that emit plenty of light for us to observe, it's far more difficult to see the dark gases in the unlit corners of the cosmos," said NASA.

"One way to do this is by finding bright sources of light - such as other galaxies - and measuring how these gases absorb that light, to get a glimpse of what's in these hidden areas.

"Scientists use such 'cosmic lighthouses' to illuminate this cosmic fog rolling in from the dark 'oceans' between galaxies," NASA explained.

But interpreting the data from these observations is very difficult.

Powerful and complicated supercomputer simulations are carried out using the Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at the Ames Research Centre in Silicon Valley.

The simulations are then matched up with observations from the Hubble space telescope to extrapolate the properties of the gas hidden between galaxies.

NASA said: "The results tell us that this space is far from empty. It has complex structures made of churning, turbulent gases and small clouds, as well as extreme temperatures.

"Light is one of our few tools to directly observe the cosmos, but combined with scientific ingenuity and supercomputing, we can uncover so much more."

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Supercomputer simulation reveals how galaxies eat gas and evolve - Sky News

Supercomputer Market Outline and Pipeline Review from 2019-2025|Cray – The Connect Report

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Global Supercomputer market is a detailed research study that helps provides answers and related questions with respect to the emerging trends and rise moment in this particular industry. It helps select each of the easily seen barriers to rise, apart from identifying the trends within various application sector of the global market.

The study focuses on the driving factors, restraints and hurdles for the expansion of the market. The research worker offers Industry insights with reference to the approaching areas within the business and therefore the impact of technological innovations on the expansion of the market.

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Watch This Ultra-Hypnotic Supercomputer Simulation of Galaxies Feasting – Free

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Galaxies are ravenous eaters. In addition to occasionally cannibalizing each other, galaxies are constantly feeding on gases strewn across the vast spaces that separate them.

These gases spill into the intergalactic medium when stars explode into supernovae, and are subsequently recycled when they are sucked back into galaxies to fuel the formation of new stars.

On Wednesday, NASA released a mesmerizing new visualization of this dynamic process playing out over the course of billions of years. The simulation was generated by the Pleiades supercomputer at NASAs Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, based on observations of galaxies and the rare glimpses scientists sometimes get of gas surrounding them.

The team that collected the data and ran the supercomputer models is called Figuring Out Gas and Galaxies in Enzo (FOGGIE). The FOGGIE acronym refers to the term cosmic fog which describes intergalactic gases that are illuminated by nearby galaxies. These spectral gases look something like fog rolling in from the dark oceans between galaxies," according to a NASA statement.

Molly Peeples, an associate research scientist at Johns Hopkins University who leads the FOGGIE project, presented the simulation at the supercomputing conference SC19, which is being held this week in Denver, Colorado.

The visualization is color-coded, with yellow representing regions with high densities of gas, such as the core of the simulated galaxy, while purples show where gas is more sparse. Reds and blues illustrate the temperature gradient, from hot to cold. Sudden bursts of red show how hot energetic supernovae explosions create superwinds which blow gas into intergalactic space, where it cools into blue cosmic fog.

Gases expelled in supernovae tend to be drawn back into the galaxy along so-called large-scale structures, which scientists think connect galaxies in a cosmic web of filaments and knots made of gas and dark matter.

In the early life of a galaxy, the process of sneezing out gases in supernovae winds, then slurping them back in to make more stars, is much wilder and more turbulent. As galaxies mature, they tend to calm down, though this quiescence is easily interrupted by collisions between galaxies. This type of crash is fated to happen to the Milky Way when it collides with the nearby Andromeda galaxy in about five billion years.

Because the gas in between galaxies does not emit much light, its tough to reconstruct the bigger picture of gas exchange between galaxies and the intergalactic medium. As shown by FOGGIE and NASA in this new video, supercomputers can help to fill in the gaps, while also producing stunning visualizations of the epic cycle of star death and rebirth that drives so much of galactic evolution.

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Gospel according to HPE: And lo, on the 32,768th hour did thy SSD give up the ghost – The Register

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Updated Using an HPE solid-state drive? You might want to take a look at your firmware after the computer outfit announced that some of its SSDs could auto-bork after less than four years of use.

The problem affects "certain" HPE SAS Solid State Drive models once the 32,768th hour of operation has been reached and, frankly, is a bit of a disaster for admins not on top of their firmware patching game.

Failing to update to version HPD8 will, according to a blunt missive from HPE, "result in drive failure and data loss".

Do we detect the use of an integer or something similar in a counter by one of HPE's SSD suppliers, perchance? The Register asked HPE, but we have not received a response as yet.

Once borked, users must restore from backups. "Neither the SSD nor the data can be recovered," says HPE. Oh, and those of you looking nervously at your RAIDs: "SSDs which were put into service at the same time will likely fail nearly simultaneously."

That's nice.

The potentially affected boxen include HPE ProLiant, Synergy, Apollo, JBOD D3xxx, D6xxx, D8xxx, MSA and StoreVirtual 3200.

Readers may recall that it was an Apollo-based supercomputer that spent some quality time on orbit from 2017. That computer had its own share of SSD problems, with nine of its SSDs failing while in space, but we suspect that might be more down to the environment than a magical number of uptime hours being hit.

As for HPE, while it administers a stern word to the unnamed SSD manufacturer, users of affected SKUs should take a close look at the company's advisory, check their hours and patch if needed.

"By disregarding this notification and not performing the recommended resolution," thundered HPE, "the customer accepts the risk of incurring future related errors."

So there.

Thanks to Reg reader Paul for the tip.

HPE has sent us a statement:

A supplier notified HPE on 11/15 of a manufacturer firmware defect in certain solid state drives used in select HPE server and storage products. HPE immediately began working around the clock to develop a firmware update that will fix the defect. We are currently notifying customers of the need to install this update as soon as possible. Helping our customers to remediate this issue is our highest priority.

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Gospel according to HPE: And lo, on the 32,768th hour did thy SSD give up the ghost - The Register

Google’s claims of quantum supremacy: Groundbreaking, overhyped, or both? – Penn: Office of University Communications

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What makes quantum computing so challenging?

Real quantum systems are subject to a lot of noise, and the hard thing about quantum engineering is making devices that preserve the probability amplitudes. The low temperatures, a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, are all about removing noise, but Googles device is still really noisy. What they measure is almost entirely a random signal with a small deviation, where the small deviation is coming from the quantum mechanics.

Based on Googles estimate in their Nature paper, a classical supercomputer would need 10,000 years to complete what the quantum computer did, but then IBM says it would only need a couple of days using a different method. Could you explain this discrepancy?

IBM said they have an algorithm that could be faster than the 10,000 years that Google stated and that was because they realized that it is just possible to store that state of 254 qubits on the hard drives of the Oak Ridge supercomputer, the largest in the world, operating for two days.

Does IBMs conjecture take away from the overall significance of what Google did?

I dont think it changes the fact that this demonstration is showing a clear separation in how hard it is to perform this calculation in a classical computer versus a quantum device. Its absolutely true that people can come up with different ways of calculating things, and the performance of our classical supercomputers and algorithms will continue to improve.

IBM is absolutely right to point out this discrepancy and also to make the larger point that the quantum supremacy demonstration is not really useful, so we should continue to wait for devices that can run quantum algorithms with known applications. Its also important for IBM to run the simulation to see if it really does take two days because sometimes running things on supercomputers is not as obvious as in a theorists head. Google posted the output from their quantum calculations, so then we can check to see if they really are measuring the quantum effects they believe.

Ultimately, I think this demonstration will go down in history as a landmark achievement. Although there are other quantum devicesor materials for that matterthat are hard to simulate classically, this is the first device matching that description that is an engineered, fully programmable quantum computer. That is an important distinction since there is a natural blueprint for how one scales the system into larger devices that can run more complex calculations. With a quantum computer, adding just one qubit doubles the computational capacity, so things can move quickly now.

What comes next?

Were still a long way from having the types of quantum machines in many peoples heads, like ones that can simulate chemical reactions or break encryption models. The best estimates for what you need in a quantum computer to break encryption codes is around 10 million qubits with the same properties as these 54.

Googles quantum computer is in some ways analogous to ENIAC, the first general-purpose digital computer, which was built at Penn in the 1940s. ENIAC was built for a special purpose, using the best technology available at the time, but it ultimately found far wider applications and spawned the information age. It was a huge engineering feat to take something from a basic concept, in ENIACs case vacuum tubes that can perform logic gates, and put enough of them together to calculate something that was previously inaccessible.

That is very much what Googles approach has been. Theyve known for several years that a device could be assembled into something of this scale, and it has really just been a matter of building it. It is important to note that there are many other ways to build quantum devices, and we do not yet know what form the useful quantum computers of the future will take.

It may be that these superconducting qubits continue to push the boundaries, but it also may be that there is some other technologymaybe yet to be discoveredthat will push it forward. That is whyit is so important to continue with basic research in this area. In the case of classical computers, ENIAC was completed in 1945, and the transistor was invented two years later.

Another difference between classical and quantum computing is that we do not have great ideas for what to do with machines like Googles. The last sentence of Googles paper essentially sums up the field: We are only one creative algorithm away from valuable near-term applications. They are acknowledging two things: That its not useful right now, and also theres a lot of uncertainty. Tomorrow, somebody could publish an algorithm that uses a device like this for something useful, and that would be a game changer.

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Google's claims of quantum supremacy: Groundbreaking, overhyped, or both? - Penn: Office of University Communications

Cuba Honors Fidel Castro on 3rd Anniversary of His Passing – Escambray

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Three years after his departure for immortality, Fidel lives in the affection of his people and the admiration of good people around the world

Cuba is paying tribute on Monday to the historic leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, with many tributes dedicated to remembering his legacy on the third anniversary of his physical passing.

Three years after his departure for immortality,Fidel lives in the affection of his people and the admiration of good peoplearound the world,various articles of national media say on the occasionof the anniversary.

Writing on Twitter, Cuban president, MiguelDaz-Canel, said: How to remember Fidel? Assuming his legacy as ours,confronting imperialism with courage and firmness, working and thinking for thepeople, fighting for a better world.

On the steps of the University of Havana, theUniversity Student Federation, the Young Communist League, and people from allwalks of life will participate in a political and cultural evening to rememberFidel.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people are expected to goto the patrimonial cemetery Santa Ifigenia in Santiago de Cuba, where his ashesare interred.

According to data provided by the management ofthe necropolis, during the three years since his passing, more than one million800 thousand people have visited Santa Ifigenia to express in the mostdifferent ways their respect and admiration for the historical leader of theCuban Revolution.

They come alone or in groups, in visitspromoted by work and study centers or by the family, says Juventud Rebeldenewspaper.

They come and go, without worrying if there isa drizzle or if the sun is inclement. Among them are scientists, farmers,soldiers, artists, grandparents, and children, added the paper.

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Cuba Honors Fidel Castro on 3rd Anniversary of His Passing - Escambray

This Week in Buffalo: Biggest party night of the year – Buffalo News

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For many in Buffalo, the opportunity to sleep in (or nap after the Turkey Trot) and the promise of a hearty meal Thursday means a chance to let loose Wednesday night.

That fact is not lost on bars, restaurants and clubs; Thanksgiving Eve is, as usual, absolutely loaded with parties, live music and general holiday revelry.

Expats in town for the week have a lot to consider, too, in addition to the enticing new venues that have joined the food and music scenes in the last year.

Philosofest IV, noon to 11 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 27, at 12 Gates Brewing Co. (80 Earhart Drive, East Amherst). No cost.

How can you resist an event based on a legend involving the Philosopher's Stone? 12 Gates' name comes from Sir George Ripley's "Compound of Alchymy," and alchemists long searched for the mythical stone said to grant immortality and turn regular metals into gold. No word on whether the stone will make an appearance at the event.

But really, this is ultimately a brewery taproom party with beer releases (with outstanding names), live music and extended hours. Dirty Dangles double IPA packs a wallop at 8.6% ABV, while the Danger Zone stout was brewed with brandy-soaked oak chips (sounds fairly fascinating).

Tiny Music, a Stone Temple Pilots cover band, plays 8 to 11 p.m., following Mike & Mandy Music from 4-7.

[Photos: Smiles at Rock the Gates 2019 | Explore craft beer at 12 Gates]

...

Lowest of the Low, 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 27, at Town Ballroom (681 Main St.). Tickets are $32 in advance.

The inevitable: A Ron Hawkins holiday show (but it keeps happening because Lowest of the Low draws so well). The Canadian frontman and his bandmates tangle in Town Ballroom Wednesday, joining forces with Wolf Tickets and Ace of Wands. Word is that this show is already approaching capacity, too.

Lowest of the Low has been profiled so many times in The News it's hard to know what to focus on this Q&A by Tim O'Shei in 2017 and this Jeff Miers' review from 2012 are two good places to start.

...

Flip Hunger the Bird, doors at 7 p.m., show at 8 on Wednesday, Nov. 27, at the Cave (71 Military Road). Cost is $15 general admission, or $10 with the donation of a nonperishable food item.

One of Miers' suggestions for expats home for the holidays is a trip to the Cave, a short walk from the Sportsmen's Tavern in Black Rock and a key component of the Halls family's expansion project. This fundraiser on Thanksgiving Eve is a prime opportunity to take the critic's advice while supporting the Food Bank of WNY.

The Donny Frauenhofer Band, Farrow and Saranaide more different than they are similar in their musical approaches give listeners a refreshing variety.

...

The Night Before Thanksgiving featuring Folkfaces, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 27, at 42 North Brewing (25 Pine St., East Aurora). Admission is a canned good or winter clothing for Friends of the Night People.

The 42 North footprint is expanding in East Aurora, with four new Airbnbs, additional brewing space, a canning line with clean branding and lofty goals of becoming a major player in regional craft beer distribution; co-founder John Cimperman told The News' Scott Scanlon he's "in the business of selling an experience."

Folkfaces, a local Americana/roots band lauded by News contributor Mac McGuire, will perform on Thanksgiving Eve, just a few months after releasing wonderfully named album "Fat Ol' Rat."

...

Lazlo Hollyfeld, 9 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 27, at McGarret's (946 Elmwood Ave.). Cost is $7 at the door.

Respect tradition. Sonny Baker and friends have a mix of music planned for their annual Thanksgiving Eve show in "the bar that has no name" (but it does have a name, it's McGarret's).

Hollyfeld's history of covering bands they love in this case, the Talking Heads. again continues, while they'll also play "the music of themselves," (or original music, but we like how they put it). The band had a tune-up of its Talking Heads set roughly two weeks ago when they played Hydraulic Hearth's fifth anniversary.

...

Marquee Grand, 10 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 27 at Mr. Goodbar (1110 Elmwood Ave.). No admission cost listed.

For a variety of reasons, Goodbar is a popular stomping grounds on Thanksgiving Eve and whenever expats return to Buffalo. A great beer list, cheap live music, underrated wings and unpretentious atmosphere are at the heart of its appeal, which were elaborated upon when the bar celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.

Marquee Grand is a four-piece rock band from Buffalo, also with new music on the way after a strong gig at the Alternative Buffalo Birthday Show. The group will release a single, "Maybe," on Dec. 6.

...

Beach Slang, 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 26, at Mohawk Place (47 E. Mohawk St.). Cost is $20 in advance.

New music is right around the corner for Philadelphia punk band Beach Slang, so Mohawk Place concertgoers could be in for a treat. The coming album title, "Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City," is the work of James Alex, the band's only stable presence over the course of its five-year history.

Local opener Mom Said No. has generated plenty of buzz this year, as well as some praise from Miers, who thinks they could be the next band to break out of Buffalo.

...

One-Eyed Cat Brewing holiday pop-up, 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 26, at Moor Pat (78 E. Spring St., Williamsville). No cost to attend.

One-Eyed Cat Brewing has done things the right way in starting its brewery, building industry relationships by staging pop-ups around the area before settling on their main taproom location, inside an old church at 10678 Main St. in Clarence Hollow.

Another chance to try their beer comes Tuesday at craft beer-crazed Moor Pat, a short jaunt from their eventual location. OECB will have three brews to sample: a New England IPA, a Russian Imperial Pumpkin Stout and the house imperial stout. More details on these beers at the event page.

...

More options for Thanksgiving Eve

Jive Turkey Celebration at Duke's Bohemian Grove BarThanksgiving Eve Bash at the Cove with Hit-N-RunThanksgiving Eve party at Becker Farms/Vizcarra VineyardsStoutsgiving 2019 at Big Ditch Brewing Co.Strictly Hip at Tralf Music Hall

...

Continued: "The Irishman" at Dipson Amherst, North Park Theater. Read the review and the feature on Buffalo-born actor Patrick Gallo.

...

Sold out: Turkey Trot on Thursday in downtown Buffalo, but look back at last year's Smiles for good measure.

...

3 quick-hitters for this week

Thanksgiving Night party at New York Beer ProjectOpening of Lewiston Family Ice RinkPints for Progress No. 7 at Taylor Theater

...

5 events to look forward to this weekend

Hotel Henry holiday market beginsJingle Falls USA in Niagara FallsChristmas in EllicottvilleHandel's "Messiah" with BPO at OLV Basilica"The Nutcracker" at Shea's Buffalo

[Sold out for this weekend: World's Largest Disco; As I Lay Dying]

Email: btsujimoto@buffnews.com

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This Week in Buffalo: Biggest party night of the year - Buffalo News

BOOKS IN BRIEF: ‘Living With Limericks,’ by Garrison Keillor, and ‘The Secrets We Kept,’ by Lara Prescott – Minneapolis Star Tribune

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Living With LimericksBy Garrison Keillor. (Prairie Home Productions, 175 pages, $17.99.)

You can almost hear Garrison Keillor snickering like a naughty schoolboy as you leaf through his latest book, Living With Limericks, featuring dozens of mildly saucy rhymes, too tame for Playboy, too raunchy for the New Yorker. His obsession with flatulence is so deep, you may want to ground him for a week.

But between acts of juvenile delinquency, the former Prairie Home Companion host waxes wistfully through poems and anecdotes about childhood memories, surgeries and growing old. In many ways, the collection serves as a sneak preview to the memoir hes currently peddling to publishers.

He also bares his fangs, laying into everyone from Bob Dylan to local podcaster Nora McInerny, who wrote a scathing commentary about him for Time magazine shortly after he was accused of sexual misconduct. He never directly references the scandal, but he can be quite amusing while skirting at its hem.

Youre a phenomenon and a national treasure, he shares in a chapter about immortality. And then the earth turns and youre a guy spilling soup on his shirt.

When hes not playing the pity card, Keillor reminds us that he remains one of our most thoughtful wordsmiths and a generous one. At one point, he offers some helpful tips on how you too can improve your writing, something Dylan would never do.

Neal Justin

The Secrets We KeptBy Lara Prescott. (Knopf, 325 pages, $26.95.)

The dazzling prologue of The Secrets We Kept is a tough act to follow, but Lara Prescott pulls it off. Written in first-person plural, its from the perspective of women who toil in the secretarial pool at the CIA in the early 1950s. They tell us they are smarter and more skilled than the suits they work for and they close the prologue by asserting, Unlike some of the men, we could keep our secrets.

The plural chapters continue throughout the novel, but theyre interspersed with first-person accounts from several characters, including Irina, a Russian-American who quickly earns duties in addition to typing. Her job? Helping to smuggle into the U.S. a copy of Boris Pasternaks unpublished Doctor Zhivago, which the CIA intends to get into the hands of as many Americans and Russians as possible.

Prescott (yes, she was named after the heroine of Zhivago) also includes chapters featuring Pasternak and the real-life inspiration for Lara and, although theyre involving, theyre not as strong as the voices of the secretaries, who we miss every moment The Secrets We Kept isnt with them. Perhaps a sequel is in order, one where we find out what other secrets theyre keeping?

CHRIS HEWITT

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BOOKS IN BRIEF: 'Living With Limericks,' by Garrison Keillor, and 'The Secrets We Kept,' by Lara Prescott - Minneapolis Star Tribune

USF womens soccer tops Washington to reach first Sweet 16 – Tampa Bay Times

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The USF womens soccer team is headed to its first Sweet 16, even as its senior scoring dynamo heads to program immortality.

A week after her hat trick in Gainesville, Evelyne Viens scored two more goals Friday afternoon to propel the Bulls (16-4) to a 2-0 victory against fourth-seeded Washington (12-7-2) in an NCAA Tournament second-rounder in Tallahassee.

USF faces either top-seeded FSU or Brown in Sundays 1 p.m. third-rounder.

Its a big deal for me in my career, always trying to break through that second round, said Bulls coach Denise Schilte-Brown, who has led USF to six NCAA tourney appearances in her 13 seasons. I said I felt like this was the team to do it, but now that were here, it feels great.

MORE BULLS: Change of (flight) plans leads Greg Reaves from Air Force to prosperity at USF

Viens, already the American Athletic Conferences career leader in goals and points, has nine goals in her last four matches. Her first one Friday, in the 25th minute, came on an assist from Land OLakes High alumnus Sydny Nasello.

Sophomore goalkeeper Sydney Martinez the focus of Viens post-match praise had seven saves, stopping a Huskies penalty kick with a diving lunge to her right in the 76th minute.

(Viens) is so selfless, Schilte-Brown said. Honestly, shes such an incredible soccer player, and her first thought is always her teammates, so that is what makes Evelyne great. Its a great team. Sydney is amazing.

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USF womens soccer tops Washington to reach first Sweet 16 - Tampa Bay Times

6 Most Embarrassing Things To Ever Happen Inside A UFC Cage – WhatCulture

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For every professional mixed martial artist in the world, when the cage door shuts, it's another opportunity to shine.

Moreover, for fans of the sport, it's the chance to watch mortal men and women try to achieve the sort of lasting legacy most folks can only dream of that keeps us coming back.

Of course, things don't always go according to plan. Often times, the path to MMA immortality is a treacherous one indeed.

Sure, anytime a UFC fighter steps in the cage, they run the risk of losing a bout in front of an audience of thousands sometimes even millions. However, losing isn't the worst thing that can happen to a fighter. After all, some of the greatest to have ever set foot inside the Octagon have several Ls on their records.

Most fighters eventually come to terms with a loss. However, suffering a humiliating mishap in the cage, the kind folks talk about years later, can be much harder to shake. In fact, embarrassing moments often become more synonymous with a fighter than their greatest achievement.

To provide examples of instances that would illustrate the previous points, let's take look at some of the UFC's most embarrassing moments.

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6 Most Embarrassing Things To Ever Happen Inside A UFC Cage - WhatCulture

Editorial: Give thanks for those who came before us – North Platte Telegraph

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Thanksgiving usually focuses on present-day blessings. As it should.

It also should include reflection on past blessings.

So on this pre-Thanksgiving day with local historical significance the 90th birthday of the Fox Theatre we give thanks for the people who blessed North Platte with such a fascinating history.

People like William F. Buffalo Bill Cody, naturally. William McDonald. Ira L. Bare. Keith Neville. Walter J. OConnor. The Hirschfeld brothers. William M. Jeffers. Rae and Denver Wilson. Butler Miltonberger.

Each represents not only himself or herself but also countless other early residents, familiar or otherwise, with whom they lived and worked.

But all saw or encouraged something priceless in North Platte and western Nebraska that we all would do well to remember when tempted to believe all those national flyover country put-downs.

Cody spent most of his adult life on the road, whether as an Army scout, a stage actor or leader of the Wild West Show.

But he kept his home base for decades in North Platte, which he first saw in 1869 as a Fort McPherson scout. The affection he and his hometown had for each other was palpable whenever he came home.

McDonald, the first white child born in Lincoln County, carried on father Charles merchant and banking interests. Their bank lasted more than a century. Born in 1860, he did, too.

McDonald joined with Bare, chronicler and promoter of our community for 67 years, to write a massive two-volume Lincoln County history that marks its centennial in 2020. Bare himself came to town as a young man in 1881 and died here 71 years later.

Neville, Nebraskas World War I governor and the first western one, could have become a Lincoln political denizen after his 1917-19 term.

He returned home instead, building on the legacies of his grandfather (rancher M.C. Keith) and father (U.S. Rep. William Neville) and building downtowns Neville Corner: the Hotel Pawnee and the Fox and Paramount theaters. All still stand. (Hes also the reason North Platte High Schools teams are the Bulldogs.)

OConnor, a British immigrant, came west from Grand Island in 1911 and developed his own long-thriving downtown corner of five-and-dime, department and drug stores at East Fourth and Dewey.

Joe and Hyman Hirschfeld came from Denver in 1917 to liquidate a mens clothing store. They chose to stay instead. Their store remains here a century later, now where OConnor first had his five-and-dime.

Jeffers, the hometown railroader made good, never broke his ties to North Platte. He was here the day he became Union Pacific president in 1937, celebrating with his friends. He generously enabled our service canteens in both world wars. Even retired, he helped plant Bailey Yards roots as a U.P. board member.

The Wilson siblings grew up in a railroad family, too. Rae Wilsons leadership qualities and passion to support the military gave birth in 1941 to the World War II Canteen, which next-door neighbor Helen Christ, Jessie Hutchens, Edna Neid and 55,000 others across the central Plains carried to immortality.

It was Denver Wilson whom Rae followed to Arkansas when he was first called up to prepare for the war. When Pearl Harbor happened, Denver was off with his hometown National Guard commanding officer, Miltonberger, who had to be called from hunting turkeys near Oshkosh to ship out.

Nearly four years later, both came home to a heroes parade. At its head was Miltonberger as one-star general of the 134th Infantry Regiment, the All Hell Cant Stop Us gang, which broke through the Nazis at St.-Lo with Lt. Col. Denver Wilson as a company commander and barreled across Europe.

We could mention many others since 1945 whose love for North Platte has shaped the town we know. Some left us only recently; others are still with us. (Feel free to offer other names if you wish.)

Every community has people who felt about it as these well-known people felt about North Platte. They all leave interesting stories behind, though we believe (in our biased opinion) our stories give our community an especially compelling narrative.

Lets give thanks this week for all our stories and the people who lived them, loved their families and communities and live still when we share memories.

Happy 90th birthday to the Fox, by the way. And happy Thanksgiving to all.

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Editorial: Give thanks for those who came before us - North Platte Telegraph

Gallardo leads irrepressible River to another shot at glory – Buenos Aires Times

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Just over five years ago, River Plate boasted two Copas Libertadores in their trophy cabinet and were celebrating their first Primera Divisin title, following the humiliation of dropping down to the Nacional B. Having beaten out Boca Juniors to that crown in May, 2014, Millonario idol Ramn Daz stepped aside to make way for young, untested Marcelo Gallardo to take over.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Under Gallardo, River Plate have become an irrepressible force in South American football, reaching the Libertadores semi-finals in four of the coach's five campaigns. On Saturday, they take the field in Lima's Estadio Monumental in the hope of an incredible third win since the coach assumed his position, a feat that would seal Gallardo's place among the likes of Carlos Bianchi, Tele Santana and Luis Cubilla as one of the greatest coaches in the competition's illustrious history.

It will not be easy, of course. Standing between the Millo and another triumph is fearsome Flamengo, a team stacked with talent recruited from among Brazil and Europe's best and directed by another wily tactician, Portuguese veteran Jorge Jesus. Not always do such continental finals bring together the two sides who can claim to be the best around; but it is hard to argue that either River or Flamengo are unworthy of their spot in this first-ever one-off Libertadores decider.

Unlike their opponents, the Rio de Janeiro outfit only have faint memories of lifting South America's most coveted club trophy. Not since 1981, when the incomparable Zico led them to glory, have Flamengo gone all the way in the Libertadores, and those 38 years of disappointment have been made all the harder to digest given the procession of Brazilian sides that, along with their Argentine counterparts, have dominated the medal count in the interim.

They are great opponents. We are two very good teams. We have the same chance two teams which are similar with respect to players and tactics, Gallardo explained to reporters when quizzed on Flamengo. We have a chance, I'd say we're might even be level. We will see later if a final with good football comes out.

Although they may be a team that thinks first of attack and later about how to stop goals, River will have to be alert at the back. Fla duo Gabriel 'Gabigol' Barbosa and Bruno Henrique have smashed 69 goals between them in 2019 alone and will have to be nullified should Gallardo's charges stand a chance.

The Millo, in turn, will look to their stellar midfield and the likes of Enzo Prez, Exequiel Palacios and Nacho Fernndez to control the pace of the final, in the hope that the Brazilians' forward threat is starved through lack of service and that likely starting forward pair Rafael Borr and Matias Surez can make the difference at the other end.

It will be an intriguing clash between two of South America's biggest, most talented clubs and a fitting stage for this first one-off final which almost ended in debacle when its original venue Santiago was stripped of hosting rights just weeks before the ball starts rolling due to protests in Chile.

On one side Flamengo are gunning for the relief of title glory; for River and Gallardo, another step towards immortality.

Kick off:5pm, this Saturday

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Gallardo leads irrepressible River to another shot at glory - Buenos Aires Times

An Egyptian extravaganza that costs an arm and a leg – Catholic Herald Online

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The Tutankhamun exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, near Londons Sloane Square, is on its third stop on a 10-country tour. Its the last time these items will leave Egypt, and in some cases the first.

The familiar face and figure on all the posters is not Tutankhamuns famous death mask, which is too delicate to travel, but a 15-inch canopic coffinette that once held his liver. The closest we get to seeing the splendour of his coffin is various pieces of jewellery laid on a full-sized model of his mummy case.

Quotations from the Egyptian Book of the Dead feature throughout the exhibition, which focuses on the meaning of the boy-kings burial items, and on their significance in his journey into immortality. Tutankhamun was only nine when he came to the throne, and one of the most touching exhibits is his child-sized armchair.

The 150 exhibits are labelled well, giving both specific descriptions of each item and background information. What is most astonishing is their beauty, their bright colours, their perfection their freshness. Its almost impossible to believe that these artefacts are 3,300 years old.

The exhibition itself is well designed; its presentation at the Saatchi Gallery far less so. (As the Saatchi specialises in works by living artists, one wonders why it is hosting it.) The rooms arent connected, and are on three floors. The carefully planned transition of projected sound and vision from one room to the next the promised immersive journey just doesnt work when you have to go out to a corridor or up stairs to the next room. The piped New Age muzak in most rooms adds nothing to the experience.

The last and largest piece, which is given a room all to itself, is a quartzite statue of Tutankhamun; projected on the wall is the text Speak the name of the dead and you make them live again, implying that archaeologist Howard Carters discovery, and this exhibition itself, are granting the young king the eternal life he so desired.

I found it an enjoyable exhibition, with three caveats. First, the Saatchi Gallery has a confusing layout, and there is little indication of how to get from one room to the next not helpful to visitors.

Secondly, museum gift shops are always overpriced, but this one takes it to extremes: 10 for a small flask of Egyptian sand, 16 for a small scarab beetle and an exacting 50 for the exhibition book. This is on top of the widely criticised minimum entry price of 24.50 or an exorbitant 100 for a family of three at peak periods (including weekends).

The profits will help pay for the eventual home of these exhibits (and many more) in the Grand Egyptian Museum, opening next year in Cairo.

Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh is at the Saatchi Gallery, London, until May 3, 2020

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An Egyptian extravaganza that costs an arm and a leg - Catholic Herald Online

10 Signs Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Is Ripping Off Harry Potter – WhatCulture

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The story of cinemas most iconic family will finallybe concluding this fall. Star Wars Episode 9 will be hitting cinemas in December and with it, the Skywalker saga delivers its long, long awaited encore. As pre-sales figuressurpass even Avengers Endgame, the hype train is at warp speed, and theexcitement so thick you can cut it with a lightsaber.

However, the more we delve into the stream oftrailers, TV spots and other juicy bits of information, the more it all starts toring a bell... a magical bell. It has been eight years since we saw Harry Potter casthis last Expelliarmus, but his influence has clearly spread far and wide. Allthe way to a galaxy far, far away.

Be it spiritually connected characters or an evil manssupposed quest for immortality, a lot of the challenges facing Rey and co. inthe heavily anticipated finale are shaping up to reflect things Harry andhis friends went through during their own crusade against the dark side.

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10 Signs Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Is Ripping Off Harry Potter - WhatCulture

Pen Of The Year By Graf Von Faber-Castell: New For 2020 – Forbes

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Pen of the Year 2020: Sparta.

Graf von Faber-Castell has been offering its annual Pen of the Year since 2003, and each year it has revealed yet another beautiful pen of historical significance. The 2020 collection is making an early debut and like its predecessors, this years editionSpartawill give you a new appreciation for pens and the stories they tell.

The myth of Sparta and its heroes come alive in this limited edition writing instrument, and the design and workmanship is based on the armor and weapons of the Greek heroes. For example, the ruthenium-plated, sandblasted matte barrel is reminiscent of the Spartans steel battle dress. The pens milled decoration pays homage to the striped protective armor worn, and its grip evokes the form of the breastplate. Inspired by the rivets reinforcing the ancient armor, there are seven hand-applied rough diamonds totaling up to 0.35 carats adorning the body.

Both the end piece and the cap of the Pen of the Year 2020 are polished to a high gloss. The spring-loaded clip is based on a Greek warriors helmet. The pen also immortalizes the Lambda symbol from the Greek alphabet, once emblazoned on the defensive shields of the Lacedaemonians. It is featured as a lacquered inlay on the end of the writing implement and is joined by another historical Greek decoration, the meander, which symbolizes immortality.

Pen of the Year 2020, Black Edition

In the Sparta Black Edition, the legendary strength of the Greek heroes is symbolized in an interplay between the dark color of the pen and the stones decorating it. The anthracite-colored, milled metal barrel with PVD coating is adorned with 42 rough diamonds totaling up to 2.1 carats, in seven rows of six, which are again reminiscent of the rivets on the protective armor of the Spartans.

The Sparta fountain pens feature an 18-karat ruthenium-plated gold nib in fine, medium, broad and double broad sizes; there is also a rollerball in each version available.

Each writing implement comes in a high-gloss, black wooden case, accompanied by a certificate signed by Count Charles von Faber-Castell confirming the authenticity of the limited edition.

Earlier Models

The Pen of the Year 2019, the Samurai, is an homage to the warriors who were considered military nobility in medieval and early-modern Japan. The Samurai is distinguished by its dark barrel made of stained and polished magnolia woodembellished with Japanese characters, worked by hand in 24-karat gold. Quoting the samurai warrior and philosopherMiyamoto Musashi,it reads: Today I win against myself of yesterday.

The Pen of the Year 2018, the Imperium Romanum, is made from statuario marble, and its cap features an engraving of he Colosseum. The pen is crowned by a miniature Roman coin modeled on a very rare silver coin from 44 BC depicting Caesars head.

ThePen of the Year 2017is an ode to the Vikings, with a platinum-plated barrel inspired by the graceful curves of the Viking longboats. Slivers of curly birch wood are integrated into the design of the fountain pen and rollerball in a nod to the wood used in Norse boat making.

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Pen Of The Year By Graf Von Faber-Castell: New For 2020 - Forbes

What it means to be a cyborg in 2019 – Quartz

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I have a four-foot-tall robot in my house that plays with my kids. Its name is Jethro.

Both my daughters, aged 5 and 9, are so enamored with Jethro that they have each asked to marry it. For fun, my wife and I put on mock weddings. Despite the robot being mainly for entertainment, its very basic artificial intelligence can perform thousands of functions, including dance and teach karate, which my kids love.

The most important thing Jethro has taught my kids is that its totally normal to have a walking, talking machine around the house that you can hang out with whenever you want to.

Given my daughters semi-regular use of smartphones and tablets, I have to wonder how this will affect them in the future. Will they have any fear of technologies like driverless cars? Will they take it for granted that machine intelligences and avatars on computers can be their best friends, or even their bosses?

Will marrying a super-intelligent robot in 20 years be a natural decision? Even though I love technology, Im not sure how I would feel about having a robot-in-law. But my kids might think nothing of it.

This is my story of transhumanism.

Courtesy of Zoltan Istvan

My transhumanism journey began in 2003 when I was reporting a story for National Geographic in Vietnams demilitarized zone and I almost stepped on a landmine.

I remember my guide roughly shoving me aside and pointing to the metal object half sticking out of the ground in front of me.

I stared at the device that would have completely blown my legs off had my boot tripped the mine. I had just turned 30. The experience left me shaken. And it kept haunting me.

That night as I lay tense and awake in my hotel room, I had the epiphany that has helped define the rest of my life: I decided that the most important thing in my existence was to fight for survival. To put it another way: My goal was to never die.

Because I was not religious, I immediately turned to the thing that gave meaning to my world: science and technology. I took a leap of faith and made a wager that day. I later called this (and even later, dedicated a book to it) the transhumanist wager.

The life extension business of transhumanism will be a $600 billion industry by 2025.

My idea for an immortality wager came from Pascals Wager, the famous bet that caught on in the 17th century that loosely argued it was better to believe in God than not to, because you would be granted an afterlife if there was indeed a God. My transhumanist wager was based in my belief that its better to dedicate our resources to science and technology to overcome death while were still aliveso we dont ever have to find out whether there is an afterlife or not. It turns out I wasnt alone in my passion to live indefinitely through science. A small social movement, mostly of academics and researchers, were tackling similar issues, starting organizations, and funding research.

Some of them called themselves transhumanists.

Fast-forward 16 years from my landmine incident, and transhumanism has grown way beyond its main mission of just overcoming death with science.

Now the movement is the de facto philosophy (maybe even the religion) of Silicon Valley. It encapsulates numerous futurist fields: singularitarianism, cyborgism, cryonics, genetic editing, robotics, AI, biohacking, and others.

Biohacking in particular has taken offthe practice of physically hacking ones body with science, changing and augmenting our physiology the same way computer hackers would infiltrate a mainframe.

Its pretty obvious why it has emerged as such a big trend: It attracts the youth.

Not surprisingly, worrying about death is something that older people usually do (and, apparently, those younger people who almost step on landmines). Most young people feel invincible. But tell young people they can take brain drugs called nootropics that make them super smart, or give them special eye drops that let them see in the dark, or give them a chip implant that enhances human ability (like the one I have), and a lot of young people will go for it.

In 2016, I ran for the US presidency as the Transhumanist Party nominee. To get support from younger biohackers, my team and I journeyed on the Immortality Busmy 38-foot coffin-shaped campaign busto Grindfest, the major annual biohacking meet-up in Tehachapi, California. In an old dentists chair in a garage, biohackers injected me with a horse syringe containing a small radio-frequency-identification implant that uses near-field communication technologythe same wireless frequency used in most smartphones. The tiny deviceits about the size of a grain of ricewas placed just under the skin in my hand. With my chip, I could start a car, pay with bitcoin, and open my front door with a lock reader.

Four years later, I still have the implant and use it almost every day. For surfers or joggers like myself, for example, its great because I dont have to carry keys around.

One thing I do have to navigate is how some religious people view me once they understand I have one. Evangelical Christians have told me that an implant is the mark of the beast, as in from the Bibles Book of Revelations.

Even though Im tagged by conspiracy theorists as a potential contender for the Antichrist, I cant think of any negatives in my own experiences to having a chip implant. But as my work in transhumanism has reached from the US Military to the World Bank to many of the worlds most well-known universities, my chip implant only exasperates this conspiracy.

While people often want to know what other things Ive done to my body, in reality becoming a cyborg is a lot less futuristic and drastic than people think.

For me and for the thousands of people around the world who have implants, its all about functionality. An implant simply makes our lives easier and more efficient. Mine also sends out pre-written text messages when peoples phones come within a few feet of me, which is a fun party trick.

But frankly, a lot of the most transformative technology is still being developed, and if youre healthy like me, theres really not much benefit in doing a lot of biohacking today.

I take nootropics for better brain memory, but theres no conclusive research I know of that it actually works yet. Ive done some brainwave therapy, sometimes called direct neurofeedback, or biofeedback, but I didnt see any lasting changes. I fly drones for fun, and of course I also have Jethro, our family robot.

For the most part, members of the disabled community are the ones who are truly benefiting from transhumanist technologies today. If you have an arm shot off in a war, its cyborg science that gives you a robot arm controlled by your neural system that allows you to grab a beer, play the piano, or shake someones hand again.

But much more dramatic technology is soon to come. And the hope is that it will be availableand accessibleto everyone.

I asked to be added to a volunteer list for an experiment that will place implants in peoples brains that would allow us to communicate telepathically, using AI. (Biohacking trials like this are secretive because they are coming under more intense legal scrutiny.)Im also looking into getting a facial recognition security system for my home. I might even get a pet dog robot; these have become incredibly sophisticated, have fur softer than the real thing (that doesnt shed all over your couch or trigger allergies) and can even act as security systems.

Beyond that, people are using stem cells to grow new teeth, genetic editing to create designer babies, and exoskeleton technology that will likely allow a human to run on water in the near future.

Most people generally focus on one aspect of transhumanism, like just biohacking, or just AI, or just brainwave-tech devices. But I like to try it all, embrace it all, and support it all. Whatever new transhumanist direction technology takes, I try to take it all in and embrace the innovation.

This multi-faceted approach has worked well in helping me build a bridge connecting the various industries and factions of the transhumanist movement. Its what inspired me to launch presidential and California gubernatorial campaigns on a transhumanist platform. Now Im embarking on a new campaign in 2020 for US president as a Republican, hoping to get conservatives to become more open-minded about the future.

The amount of money flowing into transhumanist projects is growing into many billions of dollars. The life extension business of transhumanism will be a $600 billion industry by 2025, according to Bank of America. This is no time for transhumanism to break apart into many different divisions, and its no time to butt heads. We need to unite in our aim to truly change the human being forever.

Transhumanistsit doesnt matter what kind you arebelieve they can be more than just human. The word natural is not in our vocabulary. Theres only what transhumanists can do with the tools of science and technology they create. That is our great calling: to evolve the human being into something better than it is.

Because transhumanism has grown so broadly by now, not all transhumanists agree with me on substantially changing the human being. Some believe we should only use technology to eliminate suffering in our lives. Religious transhumanists believe we should use brain implants and virtual reality to improves our morality and religious behavior. Others tell me politics and transhumanism should never mix, and we must always keep science out of the hands of the government.

We need unity of some significant sort because as we grow at such a fast rate there are a lot of challenges ahead. For example, the conservative Christian Right wants to enact moratoriums against transhumanism. The anarcho-primativists, led by people like the primitivist philosopher and author John Zerzan (who I debated once at Stanford University), want to eliminate much technology and go back to a hunting-gathering lifestyle which they believe is more in tune with Earths original ecology. And finally, we must be careful that the so-called one percent doesnt take transhumanist technology and leave us all in the dust, by becoming gods themselves with radical tech and not sharing the benefits with humanity.

I personally believe the largest danger of the transhumanist era is the fact that within a few decades, we will have created super-intelligent AI. What if this new entity simply decides it doesnt like humans? If something is more sophisticated, powerful, intelligent, and resilient than humans, we will have a hard time stopping it if it wants to harm or eliminate us.

Whatever happens in the future, we must take greater care than we ever have before as our species enters the transhumanist age. For the first time, we are on the verge of transforming the physical structure of our bodies and our brains. And we are inventing machines that could end up being more intelligent and powerful than we are. This type of change requires that not only governments act together, but also cultures, religions, and humanity as a whole.

In the end, I believe that a lot more people will be on board with transhumanism than admit it. Nearly all of us want to eliminate disease, protect our families from death, and create a better path and purpose for science and technology.

But I also realize that this must be done ever so delicately, so as not to prematurely push our species into crisis with our unbridled arrogance. One day, we humans may look back and revel in how far our species has evolvedinto undying mammals, cyborgs, robots, and even pure living data. And the most important part will be to be able to look back and know we didnt destroy ourselves to get there.

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What it means to be a cyborg in 2019 - Quartz

Commentary: When is it okay to use the CGI of dead actors in new movies? – CNA

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MELBOURNE: To be dead, wrote the 20th century French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, is to be a prey for the living.Even Sartre, though, would have struggled to imagine casting James Dean in a movie 64 years after the actors death.

The curious announcement that Dean, who died in a car crash in 1955 having made just three films, will star in a movie adaptation of Gareth Crockers Vietnam War novel Finding Jack, has been met with outrage.

It would be a remarkable CGI achievement for any studio to resurrect an actor who has been dead since the Eisenhower administration.

True, the Star Wars movie Rogue One featured the late Peter Cushing reprising his role as Grand Moff Tarkin. But the new role given to Dean would reportedly be far larger and more complex. Cushing, at least, had already played Tarkin while he was alive.

In Finding Jack, James Dean will supposedly be starring in a film based on a novel written 80 years after he was born, set near the end of a war that started after he died. He will reportedly be reanimated via full body CGI using actual footage and photos; another actor will voice him.

The reaction to this goes beyond mere scepticism, however. Nor is it simply the now-familiar post-truth anxiety about no longer being able to tell whats real and what isnt. The rise of deepfakes presents a much greater threat on that front than bringing dead actors back to life.

RECKONING WITH THE DIGITAL DEAD

Whats at work here is another pervasive challenge of the online era: How we should live with the digital dead.

People die online every day. Social media is increasingly full of electric corpses; at some point the dead will outnumber the living on platforms like Facebook.

This already poses a range of ethical and practical problems. Some of these are the subject of an Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into how we should deal with the digital assets of the dead and incapacitated.

These issues only get thornier once you add in the prospect of reanimation. For most of this decade, digital immortality was confined to press releases and fiction.

A string of start-ups promised breathlessly to let you cheat death via AI-driven avatars, only to disappear when it became clear their taglines were better than their products. The Twitter app LivesOns When your heart stops beating, youll keep tweeting was undeniably clever.

Be Right Back,a 2013 episode of the TV series Black Mirror, imagined a young woman who signs up for a service that brings her dead partner back to life using his social media footprint: First as a chat bot, then as a phone-based voice simulator, and finally as a lifelike automaton. It was brilliant, bleak television, but thankfully, it wasnt real.

Then in late 2015, 34-year-old Roman Mazurenko died in an accident in Moscow. As a tribute, his best friend, fellow tech entrepreneur Eugenia Kuyda, built the texts Mazurenko had sent her into a chat bot.

You can download Roman Mazurenko right now, wherever you get your apps, and talk to a dead man. Internet immortality might not be here yet, not quite, but its unsettlingly close.

WHY WE FEAR DEATH

Sadly, its not an immortality we look forward to. When we fear death, one thing we particularly dread is the end of first-person experience.

Think of the experience youre having reading this commentary. Someone else could be reading exactly the same words at the same time. But their experience will lack whatever it is that makes this your experience.

Thats what scares us: If you die, that quality, what its like to be you, wont exist anymore.

But what about living on for other people? The Mazurenko bot is clearly a work of mourning, and a work of love.

Remembering the dead, wrote Soren Kierkegaard, is the freest and most unselfish work of love, for the dead can neither force us to remember them nor reward us for doing so.

But memory is fragile and attention is fickle.

BETWEEN REMEMBRANCE AND EXPLOITATION

It seems reasonable that we might use our new toys to help the dead linger in the lifeworld, to escape oblivion a little longer. The danger, as the philosopher Adam Buben put it, is that memorialisation could slip into replacement.

An interactive avatar of the dead might simply become a stopgap, something you use to fill part of the hole the dead leave in our lives. That risks turning the dead into yet another resource for the living. The line between remembrance and exploitation is surprisingly porous.

That is whats ultimately troubling about resurrecting James Dean. To watch a James Dean movie is to encounter, in some palpable way, the concrete person. Something of the face-to-face encounter survives the mediation of lens, celluloid and screen.

To make a new James Dean movie is something else. Its to use the visual remains of Dean as a workable resource instead of letting him be who he is.

Worse, it suggests that James Dean can be replaced, just as algorithm-driven avatars might come to replace, rather than simply commemorate, the dead.

Well know in time whether Finding Jack can live up to its likely premature hype. Even if it doesnt, the need to think about how we protect the dead from our digital predations isnt going away.

Patrick Stokes is an associate professor of philosophy in Deakin University. This article first appeared on The Conversation.

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