inkbluesky

city gargoyle

I tend to think of gargoyles as a European phenomenon and one associated with the 12th or 13th century at that, but as an architectural ornament they did manage to make the leap across the great pond. As a matter of fact there are quite a few in New York, GARGOYLES , THE FUNNY AND THE GROTESQUE IN NYC. The photos aren’t the best, but they manage to illustrate the point.

This piece from CNN’s Future Boy picks up on yesterday’s post about my wish that we get to truly interact with computers, Surfing the Web with nothing but brainwaves, this snip from the end gets to the grist of what I mean,

Brain-reading technology is improving rapidly. Last year, Sony (Charts) took out a patent on a game system that beams data directly into the mind without implants. It uses a pulsed ultrasonic signal that induces sensory experiences such as smells, sounds and images.

And Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the University of Tuebingen in Germany, has developed a device that enables

Stu Wolf, one of the top scientists at Darpa, the Pentagon’s scientific research agency which gave birth to the Internet, seriously believes we’ll all be wearing

By that time, we’ll have superfast, supertiny computers that make today’s machines look like typewriters. The desktop will be dead, says Wolf, and the headband will dominate.

“We already know we can trigger neurons mechanically,” he says. “You can interact directly with the brain without implanted electrodes. Then the next step is being able to think something and have it happen: Flying a plane, driving a car, operating household machinery.”

Controlling devices with the mind is just the beginning. Next, Wolf believes, is what he calls “network-enabled telepathy” - instant thought transfer. In other words, your thoughts will flow from your brain over the network right into someone else’s brain. If you think instant messaging is addictive, just wait for instant thinking.

The only issue, Wolf says, is making sure it’s consensual; that’s a problem likely to tax the minds of security experts.

While I’m not crazy about the possible biological invasiveness, the idea of thinking through papers-essays-research and having high speed retrieval would be worth the risks, to me anyway. I’d even go for the implantation of a small device to allow that interactivity. Anyone that eats out is actually already taking the risks of implanting some pretty nasty microbes, so the idea of putting some dime sized chip in my brain doesn’t bother me at all. Though according to the article even that mat not be required.

Some interesting history of corporations,  Corporations in the United States

Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end.

The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these:

* Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.

* Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.

* Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.

I just came across this site today and haven’t had time to read everything for accuracy, while I did see a little bit of breathless hyperbole, since I’ve read some of the same information in various mainstream articles it does seem to be worth a visit.