I wonder how many of you have read the news item about an octogenarian that used the newest technology in a way that it was never intended for? They claim that older people just don't understand the current technology and are completely lost when it comes to using it, especially those that are very old. Well this wasn't the case for one old gentlemen. He wanted to end his life, because he felt that he was getting forced into an assisted care facility and didn't want to leave his home. He went on to the internet and found a site that sold plans for constructing a killer robot. He built the machine and then put his 22 caliber pistol into the robot's "hand". He then programmed the robot to keep firing until the gun was empty. Next he set it up with the gun aimed at his head. He did this outside his home in the driveway, because he figured that construction workers down the block would hear the shots and come running and get someone to clean up the mess. He sat down with the gun against his head and signaled the robot to fire and it did. He left a note talking about how his relatives struggled with him to move. This poor guy certainly was not technology deprived.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is this young boy who is only twelve years old. No he didn't build a killer robot or anything like that. He does have a problem though and it has to do with technology. It seems that wherever he goes, computers blow out. It began with all the computers that they gave him in school. They all stopped functioning. Most of us know that static electricity can short out a computer, but in this kid's case, this is not what happened. Let me restate what I just said, I should have said that it is not the normal static electricity that one acquires by walking on rugs and such, it is something in the boy's body. This something may well indeed be static electricity, but is so unique that nobody has ever seen a problem like this before. His body seem to actually produce enormous amounts of the stuff. He has been examined by experts, they are unable to figure this one out. The school figured out how the boy could work on his computer, they put an anti-static strap around his wrist and a ground pad under his feet. The boy likes to call himself "Magneto Man" and keeps track of the number of computers that he has destroyed.

A famous U.S. inventor has just predicted that machines will reach human intelligence by 2029. I personally have to wonder why that particular year was chosen, but I guess he has the right to make any prediction that he wants to. I think that it is common knowledge, that we are advancing at a break-neck pace in the field of computer power and nano sized machines, just to name a couple of fields that we are advancing in. This was not his only prediction however, he stated that by 2029 men and machines would merge. Tiny machines would be in our bodies and maybe even in our brains. He believes that we are not going to be replaced by machines, but that we will adopt and use these tiny machines to augment our own powers. To enforce his argument, he stated that there are some machines that are doing what humans used to and they are doing it better. Will this technology make us better? It may make us smarter, stronger and more resistant to disease, but will that be better for us in the long run? Will we lose our humanity? I certainly hope not.

The keep hearing about the Knights Templar lately. They were prominently featured in the Da Vince Code and in many documentaries. They are the ones that started out as a religious order and that protected travelers in the middle east. They also became the bankers to the Roman Catholic Church. In the late middle ages they were supposedly all but wiped out by the King of Spain, King Philip on Friday the thirteenth. They were charged with heresy and sexual misconduct, but legend has it that he felt that they were too powerful. Well a book is about to come out from the Vatican that contains the minutes of the trials. Anyone will be able to buy it, all they have to come up with is 5,900 Euros or 4,125 pounds. Well I guess that leaves most of us out. The book comes with reproductions of parchments and official seals from that era. There is only a limited number of books available and that is said to be 799. Confessions were obtained from the Templars, but it is believed that they suffered terrible torture first. It is said that the pope believes that they did not commit heresy, although they may have been guilty of minor crimes against the order. The book is said to be a reproduction of the real thing and will feel that way when examined.

When we think of causalities during war time, we tend to think that modern wars have the most casualties, but surprisingly this is not always the case. There was one battle that stands out in history as the most lethal battle of all times and guess when it took place? Nope you are wrong, it took place in 612 A.D., it was called the Battle of Salsu. The battle took place between what is Korea today and China. In ancient terms it was between Goguryeo and the Sui Dynasty. What happened was that China invaded Korea and they brought with them the enormous army of one million men. This was unheard of at this time. The Koreans launched a surprise cavalry attack and were hugely outnumbered. They attacked a force of about 305,000 with about 10,000. To anyone this would seem a hopeless move, but the Chinese were chased into a riverbed where the Koreans had dammed the river and when the Chinese forces got into it, the damn was opened and 302,000 of the original force of 305,000 drowned. There had been a war with the same countries in 598 and the Chinese had lost about ninety percent of their land and naval forces that numbered about 300,000 at that time.

Here is something interesting that I read. It states that geneticists have found out an incredible fact. They have said that one in every two hundred men on the earth today are descendants of Genghis Khan. Things like this always put me in what I like to refer as "doubt mode". I decided I wanted to know more about the testing and here is what I found. The team was composed of scientists from Italy, China, Britain and Uzbekistan. The people tested were all from Central Asia. Hey guys, don't you think that while this may still be amazing that you found that one out of every two hundred people from Central Asia were related to Genghis Khan, that this doesn't mean that one in two hundred men worldwide wide are related to him, or is this just a misunderstanding?

Well I guess I would have to file this new technology under the guess it had to happen sooner or later section, It seems that windshield wipers may soon be a thing of the past. I always thought that when they finally disappeared, hey this technology is really old, they would be replaced by some sort of valve or valves, that would spray compressed air across the windshield. The problem with this thought was that I thought this for many years, way before the invention of nano technology. Well I couldn't have been more wrong. A company has designed a new type of windshield that uses a combination of design features along with four surface treatments One treatment filters the sun from the windshield and keeps it dry. The second treatment applies nano-dust. The purpose of the nano-dust is to push dirt to the sides. The third treatment activates the second layer when dirt is present. The fourth treatment or layer conducts electricity which powers the entire operation. The technology was discovered by Leonardo Fioravanti of Pininfarina fame. He thinks that the process will be in production within five years. It is already working on his hydro car.