Tonight will be the biggest full moon of the year as Earth's natural satellite reaches its closest point to the planet.

It was the last sacred place. You couldn't stash any money or drugs in there, but you could tuck away untold thoughts and nobody would ever know.

Now it seems "they" are cracking the code. Scientists announced today that they had extracted images directly from a subject's brain and display them on a computer monitor. By analyzing cerebral blood flow, they were able to reconstruct the images the person was seeing.

Subjects were shown 400 random 10 pixel x 10 pixel images while computers calculated the changes in brain activity. Then when those people were shown completely new images, the computer was able to associate the changes in brain activity with previous patterns, and recreated what the subject was viewing.

Right now, it's just blurry black and white. But based on technology's current rate of progression, the sky is the limit.

More on the mind reading experiment...

Earlier tonight a friend looked at the weather - "Cloudy." A couple hours later, someone mentions it's snowing, so I check the weather - "Light snow." About seven inches later, it's still snowing. Weather.com still said 1 to 3 inches last time I checked.

I guess you need always be prepared for the unexpected.

I know it's a common to think and say that the latest generation has it easier than you did back in the day. The old saying "I walked 14 miles to school each day, in the snow, up hill both ways!" comes to mind. But we are currently stuck in some ever escalating cycle that is pushing this reality to the limit.

Some friends and I had an interesting discussion last night on how the American public's appetite to sue for any inconvenience, and the resulting fear this mindset induces in everyday activities, is restricting the growth of today's young people. One report was brought up, where a pre-school was not allowed to have any standing water on the property, sand was banned, and the school was fined for letting a child climb a tree.

Now, there are limits to what a child should be allowed to do. But these limites need to be within reason, and the child needs to be subjected to certain elements in the world in order to understand and make their own decisions moving forward. Over the last decades, society has moved towards smaller families with less children. This in turn has increased the investment and attachment to each child. In turn, children are becoming overprotected at an alarming rate.

We're doing a huge disservice to these children, the country, and the rest of the world. Being made to wear helmets and pads every time they ride their bike. Sitting in a car seat until they're 5-6 years old. Not playing in the sandbox or mud puddles. Not climbing trees or falling out of trees to fully understand the potential of gravity. Not exposing their immune systems to the realities that exist in the world around them. How are they supposed to deal with life when it hits them 20 years later? Who is going to make these bumper pad outfits for these kids to wear through their career so they don't get hurt when they make mistakes? And how are the real producers and decision makers going to support a bunch of ignorant, somewhat useless, kids that don't know how to grow up?

Here's an interesting article addressing our apprehension to touch people.

I just hope Everything's OK. :)

I generally think of myself as a realist. I see the pros and cons to each situation, and I try to be a grounded individual. But I asked a friend the other day how he would define a "realist?" This was his response:

"Being a realist is not seeing the cup half full or half empty. You can still put more water in the cup."

I thought that was a pretty good analogy. So I am a realist...or some days I'm a realist.

Maybe you saw this report when it came out, it lists the Unhealthiest Drinks in America.

The top of the list is Baskin Robbin's Large Heath Bar Shake (32. oz)

2,310 calories, 266 grams of sugar, 108 grams of fat
73 ingredients go into this milk shake.
66 teaspoons of sugar
11 Heath bars equal the calories in this shake
8-12 minutes to consume this drink.
240 minutes on a treadmill running at a moderate pace to burn it off.

Wow. Sums up a lot of the U.S. right there.

I was blinded by an interesting fact a while back. Everyone has had a disposable camera at some time. And if you wind it up after the last picture has been taken, you might get one or two more random flashes out of it.

However, someone showed me the other day how you can get an untold number of flashes. Why would you do this, other than to temporarily blind someone that's not expecting it as they come around a corner? Who knows. But I'll tell you how anyways.

Wind it up for another picture, even though there are no more pictures to be taken. And holding the camera in your right hand like you're going to take a picture, slam the bottom of the disposable camera down on your other hand. If it doesn't flash, you didn't do it hard enough. You might have to try a couple times, but it's a cheap thrill once you get it.

On a side note, have you ever pulled the cardboard off of a disposable camera? Since the plastic parts are reused, a lot of them are in really rough shape even though it's a "new" disposable camera. One we saw was held together with black electrical tape. With the cardboard on it, you'd never know.

After all the ranting, I plugged my iPod in today, and it booted up. Of course, if Apple let you get to the battery in one of these, I wouldn't have had to wait 8 hours for it to completely drain itself of juice.

Working late, listening to some Bob Dylan circa 1966, I go to skip ahead a song and there's silence. I look down, and my iPod seems paused. I hit play. Nothing. Menu? Nothing. Hmm...is Hold switched on? No. It needs rebooted or something. So I hold down the center button. Nothing. Hold down the other buttons? Combinations? Nada. I plug it into my laptop to jump start it...no change.

At this point, I've realized that due to the nature of Mac products in general that it's probably a loss. We live in a throw away world. Profit over progress. Move backwards 10 steps if it means you can make more money. But we continue to buy things that are not moving people forward because they're so damn "pretty." What do I mean? I mean, nothing can be replaced in this thing. I'm positive only one thing is broken inside, one item went beyond it's limit and no longer functions. However, we have to throw away the other 400 pieces of this instead of fixing the one broken piece. Backwards. More backwards than the folks in the hills of the south that everyone gives such a hard time. At least they can still swap out the batteries in their WalkMans.

So I'm sitting here with a glowing iPod, frozen on "One Too Many Mornings - Bob Dylan". I can't even pop out the battery to put it out of its misery. It will just have to sit here for the next 5 hours, while the little battery bar slowly ticks its way to nothing one last time. The battery is still good, but it will go in the trash with all the other good parts.

UPDATE: After all the ranting, it booted up the next morning.

I've been looking at digital cameras recently, and I'm amazed at how many options exist. My old camera is just that...old. It's a 2 Megapixel circa 2002 or so. So the feature lists on the latest models include things I still can't wrap my head around.

The thing that stands out though, is all the in camera retouching that's available. I mean, I've Photoshopped a thing or two, though I've seen some people that have completely changed their vacations in PhotoShop. I am for removing the red-eye from pictures, and adjusting the lighting to reflect how reality actually presented itself. But to be able to change the actual pictures in the camera makes me realize how bizarre a world we are heading into.

By far the creepiest feature is available on the latest Sony Cybershots. It's "The Happy Face Effect". From the feature list, "The Happy Face effect uses photo retouching to put a smile on faces, with smile levels adjustable from 1 to 5.

Ok, now you can adjust a smile from 1 to 5? While it's still in the camera. I know people who've never smiled a 5 in their life. Now there are going to be pictures out there proving they did.

It's a brave new world.