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Showing posts with the label devices

I'm an IT Person--with D-I-O in the Middle

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Today's writer is supposed to know computer stuff. If I run an ad, they'll ask for photos with so many DPIs. It's expected that I will know how to convert the ones I have into the size they want. When I send a manuscript to someone, it has to be in a certain format: PDF for some, .mobi for others, etc. Again, it's expected I'll know how to provide those files. My websites/blogs have domains, at least in theory. I have no idea how to control them or even who's in charge of them. So while I'm a writer, toiling away to create stories people will want to read, I had to learn the basics of computer use beyond word processing, and now I have to keep up with new developments as things change. IT I'm not. Things go wrong, and when they do, I'm likely to be helpless to correct them. What would be great is to have a person who'll show up at my house at a moment's notice and solve the problem I'm having right then. I don't want to haul my co

Scary Books

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I'm not a fan of the undead or vampires or cars with minds of their own. The "scary" books I like to read concern cutting edge science: where we're heading, what we will soon be able to do. Here are some examples from a scary book I'm currently reading. We'll soon have lie detectors that can't be fooled. Brain activity shows up in different places when we lie than it does when we tell the truth. I'm not much of a liar (my face turns red and my eyes water, so my lies are easy to spot) but the idea that lies can be seen on MRIs or whatever is scary. Scientists can also "watch" the movies in your head now and recreate what you were thinking about. It's pretty crude at present, but the computer reads brain activity, runs it through millions of possibilities, and figures out that that's a car, that's a person, etc. Once it has enough examples stored in its memory banks, it will be able to figure out what we're thinking from o