We lost Gene Wilder today, and I am pretty much inconsolable. This is all I can think of to do. These are just a few of my hundred or so fave moments from Young Frankenstein. Everything about this movie worked, and as funny as it is, it's also more romantic than Casablanca ("Taffeta, darling"). But the main reason it worked was its leading man.
Best spit-take in history.
Masculine in mascara.
"Give my creation. . . LIFE!"
"Three syllables. . . sounds like. . . "
"SED-A-GIVE??"
"No matter what happens. . . don't open that door!"
The article below (not written by me, I'm borrowing it not-for-profit) is a followup to my last post about home brain-zapping devices. This one is a "brain wearable" (I am not kidding you), which is some sort of ultra-sophisticated iphone that you strap to your head. Here it is described as all good, with no risks. It relaxes you, it invigorates you, it helps you think with blinding lucidity and get an advantage over the next guy with all the predatory grace of a Bengal tiger.
But as with taking a martini to relax and de-stress after work, one may be fine, but ten may be fatal. If you use this thing day after week after year, if you do in fact get addicted to it (and people get addicted to everything these days), how will you ever function without it?
What if your battery dies mid-thought?
Will it, in fact, REPLACE thought altogether, and induce a euphoric, highly-desirable, permanent vegetative state?
And (more important than anything!), will it enhance sexual performance? Can it be turned up or down to get just the right degree of stiffness (for no woman in her right mind would ever go near one of these; it's a strictly testosterone-driven trip)? Can it be adjusted for length of performance: one second; ten seconds; THIRTY seconds (to automatically drive your partner to moaning orgasmic heights)?
Think of it. Sex can be dialled up or down now, pre-set, and the gizmo can just take over for you. Call up your girl friend, tell her your problems are solved and you don't need that pesky counselling any more. I can see this taking Silicon Valley by storm.
Myself, I'm more interested in the Donald-Trump-obliterating aspect of the thing. There's a guarantee on this: says so right in the brochure, actually, but the risk to your cerebral cortex is considerable. One thousand frontal brain cells have to die to kill one memory of Trump.
But hey: who needs a cerebral cortex when you have an app that will literally reboot your brain?
Turn that thing up to eleven!
Thync CEO: Merging biology and technology will dominate this century
The story behind the miracle brain-zapping wearable
Isy Goldwasser risked everything to launch Thync, the mood altering brain wearable that was the talk of CES 2015. When he quit his job at chemical engineering company Symyx in 2010, Goldwasser knew he wanted to create a device that could tap into the inner workings of our brains and emotions; the problem was, he didn't know how.
"It began with a huge risk. We knew there was a way to activate brain cells and pathways, but it was just a case of how. We wanted to give people access to their neural circuits," Goldwasser told Wareable.
The company's CEO is at his office in Silicon Valley. It's 9am and he's already plugged himself into Thync, his neurosignalling wearable for a shot of 'energy' Vibe. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Wareable office is about to go home, where – at some point in 2015 when Thync is released – we will be able sit down to enjoy a similar dose of 'calm' after a long day.
Like a futuristic espresso or a wearable technology whisky on-the-rocks, Thync is designed for those sluggish mornings or winding down after a long day. And Goldwasser's team are using it daily, and see others doing the same.
"I had the belief that we could find those pathways and tap into the delivered benefits. That meant I had to go looking for technology, and a lot of it didn't work," he explained.
"That's not being a smartarse. You go on a journey and try different directions. That's how you get ahead of the whole world."
On that journey Goldwasser met Dr. Jamie Tyler, a professor of Biological and Health Systems Engineering at Arizona State University. His 'U+ technology' made the product a reality, and Thync was born.
Choose your vibe
Thync is a small unit that works by placing small electrodes at the base of the neck. When you wear the device, a low current stimulates the nerves and cells in the brain, controlled by a smartphone app. You use the app to choose a "Vibe" to tune your brain too.
"We as humans aren't wired to call up our biology. But imagine if you could control your decisions when you want to, control your focus when you want to, or your creativity or self control, life would be a lot easier.
"We knew that Dr. Tyler had worked on ways from the outside in to activate nerves and brain cells. And we know that the pathways and networks make us everything we are," Goldwasser explained.
"So at the most basic level it began with the belief that if we have great people, we will find the pathways and network that we will tap into that will lead to benefits, to improve people's lives," he said.
What's more, Goldwasser said that the rise of Apple Health and Google Fit are paving the way for this kind of product.
"The proliferation of apps in healthcare mean that people are excited to do something different. Especially when it's an alternative to having a drink or taking a tablet, when those things are clearly unhealthy."
Whether Thync's indeed healthier isn't the decision of Goldwasser, it's that of the FDA, and the US medical regulatory body has done the company a favour by changing its guidelines over wearable devices.
"We're working with the FDA. It's great because they changed the guidelines last month, which separate what a wellness device is from a medical device. We certainly fit the wellness device category. We're non invasive. So we're in the right place with the FDA."
With FDA regulation off the cards, it means that Thync is on for a 2015 launch, though understandably, Goldwasser couldn't be drawn on the specifics.
Frontier psychiatry
The problem for Goldwasser was that the promise of a device that can put you in charge of your deepest emotions sounds too good to be true, and if it wasn't for his reputation, it may never have got off the ground.
"If it wasn't for my success at Symyx, no-one would have touched Thync. It was way too academic, it was a science experiment.
"I was really attracted to the frontier where biology and technology happen. Technology and biology will merge and react over time. If there's one frontier that will dominate this century, it's this one."
Biology and technology may be the future tech of the century, but here in 2015, there's plenty of it around. From advances in biotechnology, exoskeletons, cancer detecting bands to digital spinal chords, silicon and flash are melding. But unlike the emotion sensors, brainwave detecting gadgets and lucid dreaming wonder wearables, Goldwasser says that Thync is the real deal.
"What we have is unique, and while other companies are exploring the same area, one thing makes us different: we're not sensing. Sensing doesn't work. We activate what's already there."
It makes perfect sense, yet once the barriers of biology and tech have been broken down, could we go beyond energy and relaxation? Is it possible to go beyond emotions, and start helping people become better at sport or academically superior?
Goldwasser says that "the focus of Thync isn't on changing people, it's about giving them access to what they already have." However, that doesn't mean it's not possible to use the same techniques to unlock 'superhuman' powers.
"Theoretically, we could start making someone better. We're not going there, but people will."
No kidding, the things I find. Now people are shocking their brain. They're buying these things on Craigslist or eBay, possibly used or faulty, and sticking electrodes on themselves because they heard somewhere that it "might help" with Parkinson's, depression, and whatever-else you want to get rid of.
The problem? There are no instructions! If there are instructions, they're probably badly-translated, like the How To Stop The Smoking thing I just posted. Unintelligible. So you have to guess at what you're supposed to be doing, or else go on one of those online forums. You know the ones I mean. A ragbag assortment of ill-informed opinions flavoured with paranoia about mainstream medicine.
This all seems about as safe as doing surgery on yourself, but in this era of home medicine, anything is possible and almost everything is unregulated. I can understand people's reluctance to go to the doctor. If I go to the doctor with a troubling symptom, s/he is likely to give me something to make the symptom go away. End of story. Whether it's pointing to cancer, heart disease or Parkinson's, symptom gone = patient well, or at least not complaining any more.
So I can sort-of understand this, but I'd never buy one, any more than I'd buy a used vibrator. It might short out on me and cause all kinds of trouble.
But if THIS shorts out on you, you might be in the worst sort of trouble.
Experts wary of electrical brain stimulation at home
BY ERIN ELLIS, VANCOUVER SUN MARCH 27, 2016 8:28 PM
Researchers are testing mild electrical stimulation to improve brain function and mental health, but warn do-it-yourselfers to be wary of treating themselves with models available online.
Dr. Fidel Vila-Rodriguez, director of the Non-Invasive Neurostimulation Therapies (NINET) Lab at the University of B.C., is starting to lend devices for home use to people with Parkinson’s disease and depression that will deliver a weak electrical current through electrodes placed on their temples.
The machines in his experiments can’t be adjusted above two milliamps — similar to the power created by two AA batteries. In contrast, some unregulated brain stimulators sold online can deliver about 10 times that amount of current, something he calls “worrisome.” It is an amount of electricity still small enough that users might not notice an immediate effect — or danger.
“You may feel just a tingling sensation, so the perception is of low risk, in part because of that. But the truth is we don’t really know about these unregulated devices,” he says.
Vila-Rodriguez’s research uses machines approved by federal authorities. “We’re using a bonafide medical device licensed by Health Canada.”
In contrast, products sold online with names like Thync and Foc.us are in a grey area, approved by no government body in North America. They are not classified as medical devices by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or Health Canada. Yet their websites promise better brain performance, relaxation or energizing as desired.
Stanford University law grad and former UBC masters student Roland Nadler has a small collection of them which he doesn’t use on himself, but rather as examples of gaps in government regulations.
“These devices are a bit before their time. Or if they have a future, it’s almost always going to be with a professional intermediary,” says Nadler, currently a fellow at Stanford University’s Centre for Law and the Biosciences in California. “It’s too complex and sophisticated of a technology for most people to do at home.”
There’s an 8,000-member discussion group on the networking website Reddit about transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, filled with home users asking each other how to use the gear, which comes with limited instructions. “What positions of the electrodes are used for depression? It is surprisingly difficult for a me to find a no bull**** guide on accurate placements. Can anyone help?” Or, more alarming, “How can I tell which cable is the anode and which is the cathode? Are the blues one and the whites others?”
Nadler says this sort of chat shows how difficult self-treatment can be. Placing the electrodes is a key step, and some sets make it easy to confuse the cathode, which is positively charged, with the negatively charged anode. Depending on the condition under treatment, the current must flow in a specific direction to a specific area of the brain. Reversing the prescribed flow of electricity could excite the brain when the user sought calming effects — a mistake someone seeking relief from insomnia, for instance, might not want to make.
“Getting the anode and cathode mixed up is serious business,” says the understated Nadler.
But the lure of better living through electricity is compelling for amateurs and professionals alike.
P. S. (or P. B.): yes, I know I just used this image, but it's great, isn't it? She seems like the kind of person who might stick electrodes on her head for a do-it-yourself version of electroconvulsive therapy.
I wonder now, in this age when people become addicted to absolutely everything, if they might become hooked on these DIY brain-shockers. Or use it as a kinky sex aid, with role-playing: you be Frankenstein, I'll be the mad doctor! You be Bugs Bunny, I'll be the chicken! You be Jack Nicholson, and. . . you get the idea.
If ten volts feels good, could twenty feel even better? How about a hundred: will that erase all memory of Donald Trump? If all that juice doesn't heal or treat anything, it might obliterate all trace of symptoms so you no longer care whether you're sick or well. Just keep turning up that dial, the one that goes to eleven. . .
