"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
-Mark Twain

In the light of the amazingly alarming ways in which emerging computer technologies are redefining 21^st century existence – I have this one more clanger – MRI exams successfully conducted remotely over the Internet. If you recall, I had started talking about this whole remote-medical-procedure trend in this earlier blog. Marvel at the hand of ICT, I do!

I’m not done yet – just warming up to the entrée; I know some people who think a wireless mouse is way cool. Or even kick it up a notch to voice recognition software -- if you recall, "U talk it types" came bundled with some IBM PCs a few years back, you literally typed up your projects on your PC by merely dictating/talking to the machine. Ok, but when you start talking about the computer taking commands directly from your brain – your unvoiced thoughts – that’s downright spooky! But that’s exactly what Brain Computer Interface is all about. Picture a guy sitting in a room in front of a screen with wires sticking out of a headpiece on his head, and then words start popping up on the screen – the guy is composing an email on the computer -- from his mind directly to the PC! Yeah – the possibilities are infinite, the blind, deaf, dumb, and quadriplegics can all go back to work! The US military wouldn’t need to torture Al –qaeda captives in Gitmo – they can just read their gaddem minds! Anyways, I took the above BCI link from the ECE department at the University of British Columbia. You can Google up more links if you are really excited about this – alternate keywords: Direct Neural Interface or Brain Machine Interface.

When exactly this is coming to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is anybody’s guess. But this African friend of mine insists Africa used to have it all in science and technology – including Brain Machine Interfacing. And proof would include:

1. Egypt gave the world irrigation technology,
2. 2. the science of embalming – nobody’s been able to figure out how Egyptian mummies were embalmed and kept so well for thousands of years.
3. 3. He blows me away with his account of the construction of the Sphinx, and pyramids. He delves into the bible to show me proof of telekinesis from the book of Zechariah chapter 4 verse 8 – this verse basically says that, with shouts of grace, Zerubbabel would bring the capstone to the temple. And my friend explains that Zerubbabel and the worshippers all stood behind the stone and each time they shouted "Grace!" The stone leapt in the air and moved – this he says was how the pyramids of Egypt were built, this was how the people got those heavy stones way up there.

Now if only Indiana Jones can dig up those gaddem volumes that document the lost science of Egypt and give it back to Africans, we will transform the entire continent into a luscious Eden in a twinkle of an eye … ummm did I doze off again?