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Showing posts with the label technology

First-World Trials: Then Dreaded New Computer

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  A few months ago, my computer started acting strangely. It wouldn't connect to the internet, or it if did, it wouldn't go beyond the home page. It saved all files as Read Only, no matter how many times I told it not to. And moving from site to site took forEVER. My husband, blithe spirit that he is, said, "Don't keep fighting with it. Buy a new computer." This is a man who hands me his iPad whenever something isn't the way he wants it and expects that I'll return it in working order. He has NO idea what buying a new desktop means.  Still, the computer is old, as computers go, and I use it every day for many things. It got to a point where I had to admit it was time. I ordered a new tower. When it arrived at four p.m. two days ago, Hubby was excited. "Are you going to open the box?" "Tomorrow," I replied, and he seemed disappointed. I'm sure there was a man standing over Pandora's shoulder saying, "Aren't you going to

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