Aldous Huxley got it right

Item:  Man uses mind to control rat’s tail. 

OK.  Set aside your common sense reaction:  A man decides to use his mind and he uses it for that?  To control a rat’s tail?!   

What about the rat’s breeding habits, or his choice of residence, for example.  Why not use your mind to control one of those more pressing rat proclivities? 

Or how about a man controlling his own impulse to browse the channels for hours on end while the cable guide obscures the picture from other viewers in the room?  What about that? 

Or what if such a man used his mind to remember someone’s birthday, as a suggestion, or her ring size? 

But I digress. 

The point of the news out of BBC Future is that a man in the United States has successfully used his mind to control a rat’s tail in Brazil.  It’s scientifically documented. 

Yeah, me too.  I’m still hung up on the why of it all, but let’s press on. 

It’s a breakthrough, you understand.  The man wired up in a lab here thought “twitch” into an internet connection with the rat’s brain in South America, and voila!  That rodent wagged his hairless appendage as though he thought to do it himself. 

Still feeling a little underwhelmed. 

And they don’t mention any concern regarding reverse signals, from rat brain to man brain.  Nevertheless. 

Very serious grown men with clipboards and grant money, neuroscientists at Duke University, Harvard and the Pentagon, are focused on such brain-computer interfaces.  They are hell-bent it seems, to take steps beyond the already established ability of human brains to commandeer computer cursors, artificial limbs and virtual drones. 

We can extrapolate with confidence that they want that rat to dance to whatever tune is stuck in their heads.  It’s a small world after all.  (Sorry.)  Achieving that pinnacle they most certainly will move on to bigger and more bizarre brain-to-brain interactions. 

Hold that thought.   

Item:  Researchers at the 2012 conference for the International Association for the Study of Dreams report lucid dreamers sending signals to each other over the internet while in the dream state. 

These guys strap on their brainwave headbands and when the EEG recognizes they’re in the dream state via rapid eye movement, it alerts them.  The first one to get that signal becomes lucid - self-aware in the dream state - and signals his pal who’s sleeping in another room, or another state.  

These Avant guard techies even created a rudimentary competition in which the dreamer who signals his counterpart first, wins.  Now they’re exploring dreaming-brain-to-dreaming-brain connections via social media.  What a time saver!  Find your perfect mate while you sleep. 

The dream guys jumped ahead of the Pentagon guys and their pet Brazilian rat.  They established a conscious - at least lucid - contact between two human brains in remote locations.  The difference is that the dreamers aren’t trying to control each other, they just want to play. 

And finally:  

Item:  Google has opened a new service to let people control their email, blog posts and online photos posthumously, as concern grows over what happens to a user’s "digital life" when he dies. 

This service allows living Googlers to set up binding instructions for what happens to their electronic legacies when they pass into that great Ethernet in “the cloud.”  It heralds a common clause in wills of the future.  

And it’s worrisome for those of us who’ve had this experience:  One of my LinkedIn connections died a couple of years ago but he continues to ask for my endorsements.  “Does ‘John’ know about project management?” the screen prompts hopefully.  “Does ‘John’ know about Microsoft Word?” 

It’s creepy.  And by the way, “John” was creepy when he was alive.  I didn’t like him in the first place.  We started out as Facebook “friends” because we worked together and I didn’t want to draw his attention by declining his request.  Twisted, I know.  Then, he never even “liked” my posts or LOL’d one time!  I guess he wants sympathy endorsements now! 

In summary:  Mad scientists work feverishly toward methods of controlling us from afar.  Fun-loving researchers develop dazzling means to connect and entertain us.  And search engines allow us to communicate from beyond the grave. 

We have, indeed, a Brave New Electronic World.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley

Hi-tech holiday advances

Every year I start my holiday shopping with a few “to me, from me” items.  Just to prime the pump, you understand.  I eventually get around to the rest of the folks on the list! 

This year, to kick off the season I’m getting myself an invisibilitycloak.  I will wear it in my magic world.  It’ll be long and flowing and ride the currents when I stride toward my enemies like Darth Vader. 
 

That in itself will be off-putting, as you can imagine.  But I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when suddenly I swirl the cloak around me, not unlike Dracula, and simply disappear from their baffled view.  Then I’ll be free to torment them at will, poking and tripping, tweaking and tussling.  Oh yes!  I will have my amusement. 

Actually, it’s on order, the cloak.  I saw it in the Christmas catalog from Duke University’s Center for Metamaterials and Integrated Plasmonics.  Yeah.   

I’m not sure how I got on their mailing list.  But those guys are always coming up with something clever for the holidays.   

I know.  I probably should wait for the next generation of cloaks.  After all, this one will only deflect microwaves around solid objects.  You’ll still almost certainly be able see most things if you squint your eyes.  But being first with the latest is half the fun.  And I’m betting they’ll offer the full trade-in value when the new light-deflecting model comes out. 

Too bad, but the cloak will most likely be used for evil.  I don’t think I can resist abusing its powers.  After taunting my nemeses, I’ll swoop around the neighborhood and put an unseen sock in that barking dog’s mouth, right in front of his clueless and inconsiderate owners.   

As an accessory to the cloak, an “obliviousness blaster” would have a market.  In its absence, my stealthy self might just have to administer a wedgy or two to make a point. 

Those high-tech/low-tech solutions will have to suffice until the next scientific breakthrough I’m anticipating - the “inaudibilty hat.”  When inaudibility technology is perfected we can simply lower the flaps to tune out Bowser along with garbage trucks, alarm clocks and all those people with whom we disagree. 

Advances in space travel brought us Tang and Tempur-pedic, but, aside from the prankster, I can’t help wondering who will benefit from the actual, practical application of such a thing as an invisibility cloak. 
 
No, the commercial value of invisibility won’t truly be known until we get the cream.  That’s right.  There will be a huckster with his business acumen tuned to the American masses (pun intended) and at last “concealer” will accomplish what it’s claimed to do since teenagers got pimples.  It’ll be a perfect stocking stuffer. 

 I for one would rub that stuff on my thighs faster than you can say Spanx. 

 But the logistics remain problematic.  I mean, consider the Incredible Hulk for example.  As you know, when he got mad he swelled to many times his wimpy day-job size.  And when he did, his clothes ripped and fell apart strategically, so as to highlight his newly buffed and chiseled, if green, anatomy. 
 
But will vanishing cream work that way with ladies’ apparel?  Will our clothes shrink to fit our newly sculpted sinewy selves, or at least appear to do so?  Or will our clothes stand out against the actual flesh that still exists though imperceptible to the untrained eye?
 
Those things will have to be worked out, of course.  But no need for concern, there will be plenty of willing guinea pigs camped out around the perimeter of Duke’s campus, living in tents and working in shifts to insure their places in the line, offering themselves for scientific experimentation.  I’d take a dip in that pool. 

Oh yeah.  There’s a buck to be made with 21^st century vanishing cream.
 
And that’s the reason for the season after all, isn’t it?  Share the science!  Sneak around and surprise the ones you love!  Get them something practical, but extravagant.  Something they wouldn’t get for themselves:  An invisibility cloak.  Vanishing cream.  Love potions.  Magic mirrors. 

Treat yourself!  And make Santa proud.