tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30080982760923423312012-02-16T20:49:41.966-08:00Ben Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11551938089613651798noreply@blogger.comBlogger21100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3008098276092342331.post-86981247273600104422008-10-15T14:17:00.001-07:002008-10-15T14:17:39.078-07:00I think I'm going to put my writing projects on hold while I focus more on music. -Ben<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3008098276092342331-8698124727360010442?l=futuredelayed.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Ben Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11551938089613651798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3008098276092342331.post-3147410368393333342008-10-13T13:02:00.000-07:002008-10-13T13:12:37.848-07:00"Mind control?" said thompson, eyebrows raised.<br /><br />"Look, dude. It's not like in the movies. There are very particular strengths and limitations. We're talking MRI-at-a-distance, kind of." James scooted his chair back so thompson could see the screen; there was a little technicolor brainmap glowing there.<br /><br />But thompson still looked skeptical, so he went on. "Okay: it's already possible to put on a little headset -- this is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emotiv_Systems&oldid=244468304">consumer-level technology</a>, here -- and track eeg waves, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NeuroSky&oldid=229258514">play silly games</a> by activating <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mindball&oldid=241498812">particular brainwave patterns</a>. It's not star trek -- it's very <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neural_Impulse_Actuator&oldid=243599294">basic</a> -- but think about what you can do with a little interpolation. What you can do if you keep it tracked on one person and study the patterns."<br /><br />"Like Google?"<br /><br />"Exactly!" Now they were back on the same wavelength. "Okay, so google isn't magic. It's the same technology as anyone else on the hardware level, just maybe a little bigger. But Google takes that commodity hardware and builds it up until they have a supercomputer capable of analyzing just an incredible fuckload of *data*. Data is the key. If you have enough of it, you don't need some magic analyzing technique; you just have to be kind of smart and you can generate, say, a translation engine from english to spanish. All you have to do is scan in a bunch of documents that exist in both languages."<br /><br />"So you're using the google-style technique to understand people's minds?"<br /><br />"Yeah, kind of. You have to observe them at the same time. You know, offline." He grinned. "You watch them say a particular phrase and see which synapses light up. Do that enough and you start to be able to tell what phrases they're *thinking*."<br /><br />Thompson was silent for a moment. "James..." James was just a graduate student. He was totally unprotected. Thompson knew, somewhere inside himself, that a technology this powerful wasn't going to be a basement project. It wasn't going to lead to an ordinary sequence of research papers and publications. But he didn't know what to say to make James understand. <i>Drop it?</i> That probably wouldn't go over too well. Instead, he just stared out the window and sighed. "Be careful, okay?"<br /><br />James smiled. "Don't get weird again. You want to go shoot some hoops?"<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3008098276092342331-314741036839333334?l=futuredelayed.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Ben Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11551938089613651798noreply@blogger.com2