Bignickolson

In the world's oceans, human divers are as mobile as a fish out of water. So, what, you think you're going to fend off an inquisitive shark or lascivious dolphin while holding a GoPro? Not likely, but that's where the Octomask comes in. Now anybody can be a modern Jacques Cousteau and keep their hands free for defending themselves under the sea.

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After having a couple days to collect my thoughts regarding last week’s Build 2013 conference I want to share some of my observations.

First, I left Build happier with Microsoft than I’ve been for a couple years. Not necessarily due to any single thing or announcement, but rather because of the broader thematic reality that Microsoft really is listening (if perhaps grudgingly in some cases) to their customers. And the display of truly amazing, cool, and sexy laptops and tablets running Windows 8 was really something! I was almost literally drooling over some of the machines on display!

Now to summarize some of my thoughts.

The bad:

1. They didn’t add support for Silverlight in the WinRT browser (not that anyone really thought they would).
2. They didn’t fix (or even discuss) the nasty business licensing cost issues around side-loading, meaning most businesses will still find WinRT unpalatable as a development target.

The good:

1. The changes in Windows 8.1 to provide some accommodations for people who are attached to the Start button are quite nice. To be honest, I was pretty skeptical that these changes were just silliness, but having used 8.1 Preview for a few days now I’m sold on my own positive emotional reaction to having the wallpaper the same on the desktop and start screen (though I’m still not booting to desktop, nor do I plan to do so).
2. The Windows 8.1 changes that bring the start screen experience more in line with Windows Phone are even nicer. The new item selection gesture (tap and hold) and the fact that new apps don’t automatically appear on the start screen (only on the “app apps” screen) are just like the phone, and make the system easier to deal with overall.
3. The updates to WinRT XAML are extremely welcome – especially around data binding – these are changes I’ll use in CSLA .NET right away.
4. The added WinRT API capabilities demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to rapidly maturing what amounts to a Version 1 technology as rapidly as possible.
5. The fact that Azure had no big announcements, because they’ve been continually releasing their new stuff as it becomes available is wonderful! In fact, this whole “faster release cadence” concept from Windows, Azure, and Visual Studio is (imo) a welcome change, because it means that the overall .NET and Microsoft platform will be far more competitive by being more agile.
6. There was a serious emphasis on XAML, and most of the JavaScript content was web-focused, not WinRT-focused – and I think this is good because it reflects the reality of the Microsoft developer community. Most of us are .NET/XAML developers and if we’re going to shift to WinRT someday in the future it’ll be via .NET/XAML. For my part, if I’m forced to abandon .NET for JavaScript I’ll learn general JavaScript, not some Microsoft-specific variation or library – but if I see a viable future for .NET in the WinRT world, then I’ll continue to invest in .NET – and this conference was a start on Microsoft’s part toward rebuilding a little trust in the future of .NET.
7. The new 8” tablet form factor is way nicer than I’d expected. I had a Kindle Fire and ultimately gave it to my son because I already have an eInk Kindle and couldn’t see a good use for the Fire. But an 8” Win8 tablet is a whole different matter, because it runs the Kindle app and it runs Office and WinRT apps so it is immediately useful. The small screen means amazing battery life and light weight, and the ATOM processor means it runs Win32 and WinRT apps – I’m really enjoying this new Acer device!

The neutral:

1. As I tweeted last week the one recurring bit of feedback I heard from people was disappointment in the lack of WPF announcements or content. I’m not overly concerned about that, because I view Windows Forms, Silverlight, and WPF as all being the same – they are all in maintenance mode and Microsoft is just keeping them running. The same unprecedented stability enjoyed by Windows Forms developers for the past 8 years is now the reality for WPF too. Sure, this might be a little boring to be on an unchanging platform, but the productivity is hard to beat!!
2. Related to the lack of WPF content I want to suggest a different interpretation. WinRT with .NET/XAML is (imo) the “future of WPF”. What we really need to see is WinRT XAML continuing to rapidly evolve such that it becomes a natural progression to move from WPF/Silverlight to WinRT at some point in the future. I am encouraged by what was presented at Build in terms of the evolution of WinRT XAML, and if that continues I think we’ll find that moving to WinRT will become pretty attractive at some future time.
3. There was some content on the use of WinRT to create business apps, and that content was welcome. If-and-when Microsoft does fix the side-loading licensing issues so WinRT becomes viable for business use it is nice to know that some serious thought has gone into design and development of business apps on the new platform.

In conclusion, the overall vibe at the conference was positive. Attendees were, from what I could see, enjoying the conference, the content, and the technology. Moreover, I think Microsoft has taken a first small step toward rebuilding their relationship with (what was once) the Microsoft developer community (not that Azure ever lost this rapport, but the Windows client sure did). If they continue to build and foster this rapport I think they can win back some confidence that there’s a future for .NET and/or Windows on the client.

Here’s a fun one to finish out my vacation week – I recently received the following question:

I recently listened to a podcast dedicated to an often forgotten Skeptic, H.P. Lovecraft. (www.hppodcraft.com). In listening to the episode devoted to “Herbert West: Re-animator”, they mentioned historical experiments where animal heads were transplanted to other bodies, and survived. This set off a ping on my SkepDAR, and I researched it further. (Read: Wikipedia)

I found reference to a journal article in Surgical Neurology International, in which the author claims to lay the ground-work for the first successful surgical transplant of a human head.

As a lay-person, it seems like a plausible medical intervention. That being said, I’d love to hear the SGU tackle both the plausibility of the procedure and the ramifications such a procedure could have on our society. Could this be the key to Bob’s immortality?

In a word, no. At least not anytime soon. The technical hurdles are still too great.

Surprisingly, however, there has been some experimentation in this direction. The most famous such experiment was performed by Dr. R.J. White, who in 1973 transplanted one monkey head onto the body of another monkey. The experiment was declared a “partial success,” because the resulting monkey survived for a few days.

In the 1950s Soviet surgeon Vladimir Demikhov conducted a series of experiments in which he attached the head and shoulders of one dog onto another, creating two-headed dogs. (Watch the video if you’re not sensitive to that sort of thing.) Apparently this was done to demonstrate the Soviet Union’s superior medical technology.

In 2002 Japanese scientists transplanted the heads of infant rats onto the thighs of adults. This was done to create an animal model to study the effects of ischemia (lack of oxygen) on the development of the brain.

None of these experiments, however, constitute a head transplant – or more accurately, in my opinion, a body transplant. I think it is more accurate to describe these procedures as grafting a head onto the body of another animal, which then serves as a life support system for the head.

These are not true transplants because the head is never functionally connected to the body. In the case of the monkey, for example, the spinal cord is severed and it never attaches to the host body. The monkey head received blood supply from the body it was attached to, but it was functionally still a completely isolated head. It could have been attached to a heart-lung machine for all it knew.

In a 2001 interview with BBC news, Professor Robert White who conducted the monkey experiment is quoted as saying:

“People are dying today who, if they had body transplants, in the spinal injury community would remain alive.”

Head transplant is not a treatment for a severed spinal cord, and probably never will be. If we could get the spinal cord from the transplanted head to connect to the spinal cord of the recipient body, then we would have the technology to repair damaged spinal cord in the first place. The severed spinal cord is the main problem with head transplants and will likely not be solved anytime soon.

Other technical aspects of the transplantation process are challenging but not insurmountable. Obviously there is a lot of anatomy to connect. The arteries would be a serious challenge. The brain would need to be cooled to a low temperature to prolong survival during the process, and there would need to be a way to keep blood circulating to the brain while all the main arteries are connected – two carotids and two vertebrals.

The alternative to a full head transplant is a brain transplant. I don’t think this would be any easier, however. You still have the problem of severing the spinal cord (probably just below the brainstem, from inside the skull). You also have all the cranial nerves to reattach. You would still need to attach the blood supply – two carotids still, but further up inside the skull, and perhaps the basilar artery (formed by the union of the two vertebrals).

It seems likely to me, however, that by the time we have the technology to successfully transplant either a brain or a whole head, we will by necessity have the technology to repair whatever it is that is wrong with the original body in the first place.

We have to postulate some very advanced medical technology, in my opinion, before you get to a scenario with any kind of head/brain transplant is useful. For example, I can imagine growing cloned bodies, but somehow keeping the brain from developing or just keeping it unconscious and not functional, then transplanting the brain of an old or dying person into a young fresh version of their body.

The limiting factor here is the brain itself – it ages too. So, once again, if we have the technology to keep the brain young and going, this might also provide the same technology to keep the rest of the body going. Perhaps, however, there will be a period of time when the lifespan of the brain will be significantly greater than the lifespan of the body, or when the body will be unavoidably decrepit, and a body transplant will be desirable.

I’m going to stick my neck out, however, and predict that such a procedure will not be developed in time to benefit anyone alive today over 40.