As we go on, we remember...

It was a great Saturday yesterday, and I'm glad that lately my weekends have been very productive ones. I used to think my weekends were too short, but really now I realized that was a sign of dissatisfaction of how your weekend has been, not how bad your weekdays were.

Anyway, after almost 10 years, I had the first high school gathering yesterday. You know, usually people always said things like, "it felt just like yesterday we left school" but that just didn't occur to me. It had been too long, although no one changed in looks, everyone remained youthful and the same as they were since I knew them. I'm rest assured everyone has been well and will continue to do well. I'm glad to know some of us who are doing what they have always thought of doing, and although some are not doing what they have always thought of doing, had some plans in the future.

I mean, we were kids back then, and all we ever talked about were TV shows, sports, girls, other kids, missing classes, not doing our homework, etc. And then, we've never met and now its been ten years when we meet again, its like a huge shock and unfamiliarity, feeling like you've just got out of a cryogenic device.

That whole moment felt like the second part of IT. haha

On a last note, Helmi - almost everybody was familiar to me on my first day in secondary school, and then this new kid came in and we became close friends. And I knew since form 2 that he wanted to be a diplomat while everyone else in school wanted to either be a lawyer, doctor, architect, or an engineer. Well now you're almost there buddy!! As a friend, and at that age, he has been a good role model for me, but unfortunately our paths were different and obviously, social medial was not an option at that time.

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In the advance of technology these days and seeing how the computer has evolved, which began with a humble 4 bit processor to this very day where we have seen how the computer integrates into our everyday lives.

Although being so important to us, they remain to be separate parts from us. What if we could already have a computer as a "part" of us?

There is however, a technology that I envision should happen in a near future which could improve the term personal computing.

If you watch movies like matrix whereby skill sets are learned by uploading into one's mind while dwelling in the matrix world - that would be a powerful tool if it were real. Well of course we would probably have dozens of generations to wait for before that / even if it could happen. But one technology I could foresee happening is literally a remote control of the computer - our brain as the remote control.

This could of course improve our memory recall.

See, our memory works in a way where it sets priority on the selection of memory. Those which matters to us are stored and are easily retrievable, while there are some memory which require deeper searching and there are some just fragments. And most of the time our memories no matter how vivid are fragments, rather than a full 100% of the actual situation.

Our memory are enhanced by certain devices, for example, I may know the chords to Greenday's when I come around, in fact when I want to remember the song my mind plays a part of the song which is most vivid to me, however, if I have my guitar with me I am able to remember everything about the song. my memory is like a .pdf file and the guitar is the adobe illustrator where i am able to see the details, the layers etc.

Our brain is powerful but unless we are able to organize it like a computer, it runs by default - just like how we manage our computer, if we don't discipline ourselves to save our files in the correct folder and just save everything on desktop, retrieving will be difficult, which is what our brain does on a daily basis - fragmentation.

Now with this technology that i wish could happen soon, helps us to retrieve our memory easier. Now, when you go for a presentation, you usually open up a powerpoint presentation and based on that you present that to your crowd. Why do we do that? Because we are organizing our memory and retrieving it using point form and visuals. If only, if only in every important meeting we have the convenience of a laptop or a projector, then of course this would be useful.

If we have control of memory retrieval from a computer in any remote location, then that would help us save 1) time and 2) brain cells. With that, our brain can be trained to organize memories in a more simple and systematic way, while the actual memory like videos, pictures, writings, music could be stored in the computer. Retrieval will be based on simple keywords and memories are stored in organized folder.

The plus side to this is that when you are asked about a certain information by your boss, for example: What is our year to date sales in 2007, readily, performing cognitively, a series of simple steps: Start > folders > Sales > 2007.doc the file can be executed from the computer but the document will be visible in your vision.

Now how i imagine this could work is via an "eye-piece" and a signal reader while being tagged to the remote computer, of course this could be easily attached and detached to that person. I imagine it to be more of retrieval than anything else.

As a person with such bad short term memory, I could organize my older but more vivid memories well but could not do so with short term memories, I do wish such technologies exist. Important files can be stored in the computer physically before retrieval, and all we need to remember are the steps to retrieve the memory. This in turn could reduce stress and increase productivity at work.

There, my crazy idea on how I wish the computing technology could improve to give a really personal touch.

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Why is a dog's nose always wet?