It is a bold statement, but Balkan has a point: we already extend our biological capabilities through technology every single day, although this has yet to really impact how we see ourselves in relation to technology. Perhaps that needs to change.
This creates an “economy of influence”, says Balkan, the real danger of which is institutional corruption. “What we’re really seeing is the transfer of power from governmental institutions to corporate ones.” Governments end up in a situation where they make trade deals that allow them to be sued by the companies if they make decisions that are in the interests of their citizens, but not in the interests of their corporate friends. “Once they become law we will have lost democracy,” says Balkan. In its place, we have a corporatocracy. “It it war on the public sphere, a war on the commons, a war on human rights and individual freedoms.”
This causes a seemingly huge problem, but Balkan insists that the problem isn’t really difficult as it seems, and neither is the solution. “I’m a designer and as a designer my duty is to try and find the core problems that we can solve,” he says. What he has discovered is that at their core, most things are very simple. If people tell you things are very complex — too complex — it is likely they have a vested interested in keeping it complex.
The original Microsoft Band was introduced last fall, and along with it, Microsoft Health, a software platform for all of the data that the activity-tracker recorded. The Band was packed with sensors, let you pay for Starbucks from your wrist, and was even useful when not tethered to a phone (not many wrist-wearables offer GPS without a phone in tow). You could go running with the Band without your phone, and the Health app would later show you where you ran and even break down your run into fast and slow segments.
Next she stood upon her right foot and said: “Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!” After this she stood upon both feet and cried in a loud voice: “Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!” Now the charm began to work. The sky was darkened, and a low rumbling sound was heard in the air. There was a rushing of many wings, a great chattering and laughing, and the sun came out of the dark sky to show the Wicked Witch surrounded by a crowd of monkeys, each with a pair of immense and powerful wings on his shoulders. One, much bigger than the others, seemed to be their leader. He flew close to the Witch and said, “You have called us for the third and last time. What do you command?”
“Go to the strangers who are within my land and destroy them all except the Lion,” said the Wicked Witch. “Bring that beast to me, for I have a mind to harness him like a horse, and make him work.” “Your commands shall be obeyed,” said the leader. Then, with a great deal of chattering and noise, the Winged Monkeys flew away to the place where Dorothy and her friends were walking.
Wicked Witch took the Golden Cap from her cupboard
Great Oz himself, and driven him out of the land of the West. The Winged Monkeys had also helped her in doing this. Only once more could she use this Golden Cap, for which reason she did not like to do so until all her other powers were exhausted. But now that her fierce wolves and her wild crows and her stinging bees were gone, and her slaves had been scared away by the Cowardly Lion, she saw there was only one way left to destroy Dorothy and her friends. So the Wicked Witch took the Golden Cap from her cupboard and placed it upon her head. Then she stood upon her left foot and said slowly: “Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!” Next she stood upon her right foot and said.
But the thing was unattractive and clunky, something that became only slightly more understandable when Microsoft said it was licensing its platform to other hardware makers. This new Band shows improvements both in design and in capabilities.
As with all of these early-stage health trackers, the real value proposition is not what they track, but what they can tell you about yourself. This new Band has so many sensors and integrates with so many different apps that it might just be the most feature-filled activity-tracking wristband out there, so until we see what it actually tells us, we won’t be able to say what its true value is. Stay tuned for more.
In his treatise on “Queen-Gold,” or Queen-pinmoney, an old King’s Bench author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: “Ye tail is ye Queen’s, that ye Queen’s wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone.” Now this was written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or Right whale was largely used in ladies’ bodices. But this same bone is not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for a sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be presented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here.
There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers—the whale and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown’s ordinary revenue. I know not that any other author has hinted of the matter; but by inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same way as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there seems a reason in all things, even in law.
We have to ask ourselves the uncomfortable question of what do
we call selling everything else about
you other than your body?
Then the Lion gave a great roar and sprang towards them, and the poor Winkies were so frightened that they ran back as fast as they could. When they returned to the castle the Wicked Witch beat them well with a strap, and sent them back to their work, after which she sat down to think what she should do next. She could not understand how all her plans to destroy these strangers had failed; but she was a powerful Witch, as well as a wicked one, and she soon made up her mind how to act. There was, in her cupboard, a Golden Cap, with a circle of diamonds and rubies running round it. This Golden Cap had a charm. Whoever owned it could call three times upon the Winged Monkeys, who would obey any order they were given. But no person could command these strange creatures more than three times.
It’s very possible that his shooting schedule could have conflicted with Gotham‘s, but that doesn’t mean his character has to die. For those of you wondering if he really dies, rest assured that the episode ends with a close-up of Jerome’s twisted smile, which is affixed to his face permanently in the afterlife. The boy is dead.
