Two loops of St. Edwards Park

Where: St. Edwards Park, 7301 Spicewood Springs Rd, Austin, TX 78759

Length: About 4-5 Miles in 2.5-3 Hours

Difficulty: Easy to medium (some steep slopes)

Dogs Allowed: Yes

Restrooms: No

Direction: Go about 2-3 miles NW on Spicewood Springs Rd from 360, then you can find a small parking area on the left hand side. Check out the Google map ( https://www.google.com/maps/@30.4045273,-97.7912137,17z ) for the direction and the parking area.

Discussion Topics:

• Who owns the knowledge required to take apart and repair TVs, phones and other electronics? Manufacturers stop us by controlling repair plans and limiting access to parts. Some even employ digital software locks to keep us from making changes or repairs. This may not always be planned obsolescence, but it's certainly intentional obfuscation. What about cars? Why do they own the data from someone's implanted defibrillator?

• As the FBI demand encryption master keys for Apple, Microsoft and Google made devices, photographs of the master keys for the TSA Travel Sentry suitcases have now been published in multiple places online (more links in later articles). Cory Doctorow points out this makes it much easier for thieves to open luggage undetectably, without leaving any signs of lock picking. Whilst many have argued that the locks aren't designed to provide real security, the most important thing is that this shows the risk of backdoors in security systems, especially since the TSA has not given any warning about this compromise, which seems to have occurred in 2014 or earlier.

• Chinese researchers claim to be able to deduce a person's emotional state using accelerometer data from mobile devices attached to the wrist and ankle. The paper envisages the ultimate development of smartphone and wearable apps capable of providing systematic long-term and short-term data on someone's state of being, based mostly on the movement of the ankle whilst walking. I'd love that information about myself, don't want anyone else to have it.

• Elon Musk, on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, said that human residents on the red planet would need to "to warm it up" and the fast way "is drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles"

• Researchers printed a 3D facial reconstruction of the newly discovered Homo Naledi from South Africa. The same week a cancer patient received a 3D-printed sternum and ribs.

• Researchers have sequenced DNA from fossils in Spain that are about 300,000 to 400,000 years old and have found an ancestor—or close relative—of Neandertals. The nuclear DNA is the oldest ever sequenced from a member of the human family.

• We're in our technological infancy, sending electromagnetic signatures (~ 80 years) and looking for alien civilization using types of signals we're currently capable of sending. Maybe we should be looking for neutrino or gravitational wave signals, or signs of solar system scale engineering.

• Forget the car; I'm waiting for the first self-driving RV (SDRV), possibly via conversion kit. Long haul trucking might work the bugs out and bring down the cost. Could increase itinerant travelers and travelling communities. Invest in trailer parks? Maybe a solar panel roof in parts not taken up by the satellite dish. Sleep while driving to your next destination?

• A man has recently received a prosthetic hand that allows for him to feel for the first time. While prosthesis have previously been able to be controlled directly from the brain, it is the first time that signals have been successfully sent the other way. Said DARPA, "Without feedback from signals traveling back to the brain it can be difficult to achieve the level of control needed to perform precise movements, this work shows the potential for seamless bio-technological restoration of near-natural function.”

• Philosophical differences in how various companies are developing self-driving tech. European and Asian car manufacturers are fine working on it piece-by-piece. The car will drive itself when it can, they expect drivers to always be monitoring the situation and ready to take control. Google's tests have taught it that new drivers immediately place more trust in the car than they should. They turn their attention away and stop looking at the road for much longer than is safe.

• Pharmaceutical companies are passing out Fitbits and other wearables to more accurately test drugs. Trials have found these devices to be better than memory clinical monitoring. Down the line, wearables also could help pharmaceutical makers prove to insurance companies that treatments are effective, reducing health costs.

• Google Partnering With Indian Railways To Provide Wi-Fi Hotspots

Bring water, good shoes, good attitude all important. As always we will leave on-time unless you are close and call on the number below.

Dave

(512) 507-2831