People Are Using Fitbits and Apple Watches to Monitor Their Heart Rate When Binging on Drugs

Christina Farr, writing for CNBC:

It isn't likely to come up in casual face-to-face conversation, but scores of users on Reddit forums, Twitter and other social media sites write about the value of their Fitbit or Apple Watch in tracking their use of cocaine, ketamine, speed, and other drugs. Dozens of these threads have popped up in the past few years on the topic, some focused on cocaine and others on MDMA, also known as ecstasy.

This is the first I've heard about people employing wearable technologies like Fitbits and Apple Watches to monitor their vital signs while under the influence of mind-altering substances. I would argue that this is a good thing, because it obviously highlights the potential negative physical effects of using some of these drugs, and if it helps a drug user understand what is happening in their body, that's a step in the right direction.

There's even a YouTube channel called DrugsLab with more than half a million subscribers. Three hosts perform on-camera tests of drugs suggested by commentators, while their heart rate and body temperature are tracked on a board behind them. The idea, they say, is to promote drug education for millennials.

I haven't mentioned it on the blog before, but DrugsLab is excellent—you should definitely check it out if you haven't already.

But don't expect your doctor to condone the practice. Academics and medical professionals told CNBC that people who rely on a heart rate monitor to protect them from overdosing or from other ill effects of hardcore drugs are giving themselves a false sense of security.

No surprise there. Doctors are simply not going to suggest that patients use these consumer-grade technologies to prevent drug-related casualties, just like they don't encourage or support the use of illicit substances in general. They have reputations to maintain and must protect themselves and their institutions from being sued by patients (or family members of deceased patients) who place so much faith in their Apple Watches that they think it will enable them to safely use drugs without experiencing harm.

However, that doesn't mean that this form of harm reduction should be avoided altogether—just that academics and medical professionals are not going to endorse this practice. At least not for now.

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Become One with Art at Tokyo's Psychedelic Digital Museum

Steve Dent, writing for Engadget:

Japan's TeamLab has created some of the most trippy, interactive and Instagram-able digital art installations ever. It's only fitting, then, that the group is getting its own digital museum in Tokyo, thanks to developer Mori and Epson. The Mori Building Digital Art Museum has 100,000 square feet of exhibition space, with around 50 installations that generate imagery thanks to 520 computers, 470 projectors and numerous motion sensors.

This place looks amazing.

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China's All-Seeing Credit Score System

Charles Rollet, writing for WIRED:

In the UK, credit scores are mostly used to determine whether people can get a credit card or loan. But in China, the government is developing a much broader “social credit” system partly based on people’s routine behaviours with the ultimate goal of determining the “trustworthiness” of the country’s 1.4 billion citizens.

It might sound like a futuristic dystopian nightmare but the system is already a reality. Social credit is preventing people from buying airline and train tickets, stopping social gatherings from happening, and blocking people from going on certain dating websites. Meanwhile, those viewed kindly are rewarded with discounted energy bills and similar perks.

China is going full-blown Black Mirror with its social credit system. It's pretty fucked up to outright ban people from buying airline and train tickets due to unpaid debts or prevent them from getting loans because they cheat in a video game.

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Book Review - Virtually Human

The times they are a-changin'. Advances in technology have brought us the Internet, smartphones, the sharing economy, cryptocurrencies, and automation. Every day, people all around the world are uploading their thoughts, memories, preferences, beliefs, and history to social media websites, essentially creating "mindfiles" of themselves. Software engineers across the globe are working to create "mindware" that will combine this mindfile data with humanlike consciousnesses in computer software to create "cyberconsciousness". Within the next few decades, the combination of mindfiles and mindware will result in something called "mindclones", which will essentially be an extension of our own human consciousnesses. That is the premise of Virtually Human: The Promise—and the Peril—of Digital Immortality, and Martine Rothblatt goes into great detail about the societal implications of this technological innovation.

This is the sort of book that needs to be read multiple times to fully comprehend. I would definitely recommend it to others, but would caution them that it can be a bit slow to get into. For the first third of the book, I just wasn't hooked. But things definitely picked up and I became really interested in the discussion. It seems like Rothblatt has a deep understanding of where things are headed in the future, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence. Her arguments are well thought-out and thoroughly-researched, and definitely worth considering. If you have any interest in the concept of extending our consciousness past physical bodies and into the realm of computers, this is a must read.

4/5 stars. 350 pages.

How to Send Overdrive.com eBooks to Your Kindle

Image by Megan Trace, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

As a frequent library patron and a recent Kindle owner, I was excited about the possibility of checking out eBooks from my library that I would be able to read on my Kindle Paperwhite. I was vaguely aware of Overdrive.com, a website that allows you to do sign into your library account and check out eBooks and audiobooks just like checking out physical media.

However, as I embarked on the process, I couldn't find sufficient help documentation that would give me step-by-step instructions about how to check out an eBook from my library (within Overdrive) and send it to my Kindle. To put it bluntly, my experience fumbling around until I figured it out was a frustrating nightmare. That's why I decided to write a simple help article that will show you how to be reading eBooks on your Kindle in no time! Here are the steps that you will need to follow:

Image by Multnomah County Library, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Step 1: Sign up for a library card (which takes like 15 minutes or so) at your local library and set up a PIN for the card (most libraries have you do this during the sign up process).

Step 2: Create an Overdrive account on Overdrive.com with an email address and password. Do NOT use the “Sign up using library card” option, especially if you have multiple libraries that you belong to. Creating your own user account seemed to be the best way to go.

Step 3: Log into your Overdrive account and authenticate your library membership by searching for your library (by location or name) and then entering your card number and PIN.

Step 4: Search for eBooks "in the library" while logged into your Overdrive account and add them to a wish list or opt to “borrow” them. Each library will have a different selection of eBooks to choose from. In both of my libraries, the selection is small and it is easier to browse by category than searching fruitlessly for specific authors or titles.

Step 5: When you check out a book, you can choose “Kindle Book” as your download option and "Confirm & get Kindle Book", and then Overdrive will shoot you over to an Amazon login to authenticate your Amazon account.

Step 6: Under the "Deliver to" step, choose the Kindle device you would like to send the eBook to, and click the "Get library book" button.

Image by Zhao !, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Step 7: The book will start downloading automatically when you open the device, and you can immediately start reading! Once your loan period has ended, you will be able to check the book out again, or place it on hold if it is no longer available.

I hope this guide will help some of you put your library's eBook lending to good use. In addition to eBooks, Overdrive offers audiobooks that can be listened to using their app. It is compatible with iOS, Android, Chromebook, Mac OS, Windows, and Windows Phone. What are you waiting for? Go ahead, get to reading!