This is a week that shook up the computer industry, because, after Apple’s move to Intel chips earlier this year, this week they officially endorsed the running of Windows on their hardware with the release of Boot Camp. This is certainly a Big Deal™, for more reasons than one, and I’ll toss my opinions into the fray, having been a Mac user for 13 years now.

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Read the rest of New world order (1,386 words)

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Thiis conjures all sorts of interesting ideas, which for me are revolving about Hollywood “action thriller” screenplays. You wake up in a dark room…you have no idea where you are….but all of a sudden, strange things start to happen…people are following you, trying to catch you. Your only choice is to run. But why? Who are these people? Sooner or later, you meet up with the sexy scientist girl, and she spots something on your fingernail…”That’s odd,” she says, “I wonder what it is.” Eventually you find out it’s the super secret code that everyone needs to execute their nefarious plans, be they governments, companies, or cartels. And that’s when the story turns, and you can lure them all…try to sell to the highest bidder? Threaten to make public the information etched into your fingernail? Or hold it for ransom, declaring that you will burn it off unless they give you exactly what you want. Then, of course, you can either burn it off anyway (but of yourse your geeky vixen love interest was smart enough to duplicate the data without them knowing), or you can give away faulty information,and still get your reward.

Either way, there’s room for a sequel.

Well, as long as you do all this before six months elapses, and you find that your fingernail has grown…

Imagination aside, you have to admit this is a cool hack.

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Not “mind control” like…The Man controlling your mind. No, this means you controlling things with your mind. (Just felt I had to clear that up.)

The BBC is reporting today about a guy in the USA who became paralyzed after a stabbing, and who underwent surgery to implant electrodes into his motor cortex. He can now change channels on TV, control a robotic arm, and do other things.

I don’t think he can masturbate yet, but hey…progress comes slow. I’m just happy they’re making progress. I want the electrode hat I can wear that will allow me to think all this gibberish instead of type it. I want to eliminate syntax errors from my programming code.

C’mon, science, gimme my brain implant or weird cyber-hat!

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(Well, this week, anyway.)

Scientists at Duke University have gotten monkeys to control a robotic arm with only their thoughts, after they cut open their skulls and jammed a bunch of wires into their brains. Of course, they need to get this running wirelessly, but the ramifications of this are as far-reaching as your imagination.

Imagine for a second that people can control industrial machinery by only thinking…to be able to drive your car without using your arms as a conduit.

Imagine that people who are paralyzed might be able to control their limbs again — with synthetic neural pathways replacing organic ones.

Imagine being able to type without typing…to ‘dictate’ wirelessly and silently.

Imagine creating cranial implants capable of input and output, so that you could selectively allow others to control *your* arms…or so you could control what your lover is doing to you during sex.

Imagine being able to transmit perception from one person to another, so that you could effectively close your eyes and see and feel what someone else is.

I’m all for it. Let’s go! Get this stuff perfected!

Read the article that inspired this.

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Anyway, I am only three chapters in, but I understand the gist of what he’s arguing for: a conversion of the energy system into a hydrogen-based, distributed network, and so on and so forth, which my mother correctly points out is being touted as a plausible option only because it keeps the cartels in the game…as peddlers of hydrogen instead of oil.

But I don’t intend to comment on his main thesis at this point.

Instead, I was struck by the grim picture he painted in the first three chapters. Namely, the seriousness of the impending oil shortage. It seems, according to his figures, that we can expect world oil production to top out at some point between now and 2020…probably after 2010.

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Read the rest of Figuring this all out (974 words)

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Post tags: energy, geopolitics, technology

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It’s amazing to me that a company whose products have touched so many people could be as universally reviled as they are. About the only organizations people hate more are the phone companies.

But, this story sheds some light on the practice of lobbying in this country. Personally, I have always thought of lobbying as a truly loathsome profession; down there with pimps and thugs and Hollywood agents. Lobbying as a concept doesn’t sound so bad: Not everyone can make it to Washington, after all, so why not send representatives there for you?

The problem is, as soon as there’s an extra person involved, it costs more money, which means in effect that these people end up just functioning as whores who bend over for the highest bidder.

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Read the rest of At least dead people like them (130 words)

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