"As a 12-year-old, I've spent much of my life on screens, in school and at home, which can definitely be fun. But I also struggle with depression, and sometimes I feel like I haven't done enough'kid' things. When I grow up, will I feel like I wasted my childhood?" For philosophical guidance on encounters with technology, open a support ticket via email; or register and post a comment below. The ability to project oneself into times yet to come, to think about the present as one phase in a much longer life, is a sign of uncommon maturity--though this prudence often comes with burdens of its own.

Valerie Johnson is an avid traveler who loves the outdoors. Next on her list is a trip to Walden Pond, in Massachusetts. But the 27-year-old Texan won't need a plane ticket; all she'll need is a video game. Johnson was recently diagnosed with idiopathic intracranial hypertension, a neurological disorder that can cause headaches, impaired vision, and joint pain. These symptoms make travel--particularly to the outdoors--daunting.

The objective is to find the right balance between survival -- players can't die, but they can faint -- and fulfillment. As players seek more inspiration from nature, interacting with animals and trees, the actual game world becomes more colorful and more physically beautiful, Fullerton said.

What would you expect from a video game inspired by Henry David Thoreau's sojourn in the woods? In Walden, a game, players can contemplate the forest, go boating with Ralph Waldo Emerson, and practice civil disobedience. The game was developed by the Game Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. Lab Director Tracy Fullerton explains why she thinks Thoreau might have liked the game.

Bailey's ruminations bear rereading now that five years have passed since their first appearance. We have survived the advent of the new Millennium, and we have found once again that, after the divine afflatus, human intellect reigns supreme in the cosmos. This is not to say that Bailey's postulations have no merit. The advances of the computer age, particularly in the still-infant and arcane discipline of artificial intelligence, continue to fascinate us and to challenge us. Yet even with the burgeoning networks and the increasingly powerful integration of humanity and its machines, the surprises offered by the observations of the young and young-in-spirit still outdo those of scientific teams.