Well, this is interesting. A bit frightening, but surely a godsend for paralyzed individuals. The frightening part is that once this technology improves, our species’ slide into some kind of cyborg culture is very likely. Maybe inevitable. A working mind-machine interface will be very useful and *very* dangerous. Brains are hackable via chemistry (alcohol for example, and hundreds of other molecules) and machines are hackable via other machines (software). It’s a security nightmare, and opens the door to mind control and inability to be sure of the reality of one’s perceptions. Perhaps I’m overly dramatic, but…once you can’t be sure that your thoughts are yours, or that what you see/hear is real, what then? Maybe yet another schism in societies – one side embracing the interface, and one side staying “natural” humans. Next-generation Amish, of a sort. There’s a science fiction novel in here somewhere.

Last evening’s college basketball kickoff was fun, but KY came up short. We played well, but not well enough. I hate starting the season with a loss, and a loss to Duke is especially rotten. Which is pretty much how I feel this morning (did a little intentional brain hacking watching the game).

This story and picture of an original Apple-1 computer selling for $400K is startling, even to me. Not the price, but the packaging and finish. I had forgotten how primitive these first machines were. I owned an Apple IIe, and it was a fairly modern-looking plastic case with a decent (for the time) keyboard. But this thing…it looks like something from a steampunk novel. We’ve come a long way since 1976. The Apple laptop that I’m using to write this entry is functionally similar to the A1, but at least a billion times more complex.

One more thing. Great article today from BBC on traveling to Malta. We loved our visit to Malta, and I’d go back in a heartbeat. The fact that they’re doing so well post-pandemic is wonderful. Malta has old-city urban charm, plenty of great outdoors for hiking and swimming, great food and nice people. Highly recommended.