Brave New World February 28, 2018February 27, 2018 Your phone hears you mention “Aruba” and next thing you know, reading some blog-post on line, an ads pop up for suntan lotion and hotels in Aruba. Coincidence? Once minds communicate directly with computers — you don’t have to SAY “Alexa, turn on the bedroom light,” you just have to think it — will Alexa (or, by then, perhaps, “Donald”) be able to read your thoughts? And send an electric shock if your thought is less than loyal to the Supreme Leader, failure to applaud whose benevolence can be called treasonous? (Why not?) A leader so brave — and selfless — he would run toward a school shooter empty-handed in hopes of saving even a single innocent life at the cost of his own? This story at Gizmodo — The House That Spied On Me — doesn’t go nearly that far. But it’s fun and, yes, a little scary. Did you know there are “smart” sex toys? Calling Aldous Huxley . . . HOUSEKEEPING: Those of you who get this column emailed to you, generally see what everyone else does. But some of you point out typos I’ve made . . . or upon reading the emailed version I go back the next morning, as I did yesterday, and tweak something (yesterday, I realized we should “dispense with fish altogether” and just give a man or woman cash). So I hereby declare the draft emailed to you the night before not necessarily to be final until about noon.