“Scientists Steer Car With the Power of Thought”
The future is getting closer. 🙂
Archive of posts filed under the Systems category.
Includes stuff about anything where feedback causes the system to adapt, including the systems of nature, those that are man-made or cultural, and those of the human mind.
“How To Fight Fair”
One family I know (whose identity will not be mentioned to protect the guilty as well as myself) is well-known for their knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred battles. When they get into arguments, their opponents are called every name in the book and accused of the most heinous crimes against humanity, whether the names or accusations make …
“Why Multi-word Phrases Make for More Secure Passwords Than Incomprehensible Gibberish”
I was rather surprised at this assertion, at first. Then I thought about it… there are only about 95 printable characters in the basic seven-bit ASCII character set. A very conservative estimate puts the number of distinct English words at well over 65,000, most of which are many letters long. If you knew that someone’s …
“Tanning Can Cause Cancer, but Not Tanning Could Cause a Lot Worse”
Vitamin D, produced in human skin when it’s bombarded by the ultraviolet rays of the sun, may be the most powerful anticancer agent ever known, and lack of it during a mother’s pregnancy and breastfeeding (and keeping babies shielded from ultraviolet sunlight) could be the cause of most autism: Many researchers now fear that the …
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“Truck nuts swing onto US freedom of speech agenda”
Um… this is a matter of excessive authoritarian zeal, personal opinion, or dollar signs (imagine all the people driving through their town that they could ticket for having these). Whichever it is, these people should be publicly slapped down for abusing the law. Leaving aside the obvious First Amendment issue, consider this: if testicles are …
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“Boffins develop method of driving computers insane”
Well, turnabout is fair play. Computers have been driving us crazy for decades already. 😉 And does this mean that we’re ready to create the HAL-9000? 😉 (Really interesting ideas about brain research using neural nets, though I have my doubts that it will be very useful for most things until we understand the brain …
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“Mild brain shocks may improve learning and cognition”
Electric shocks help people learn. Well, duh! If I were a neuron getting shocked all the time, I’d certainly be looking for the fastest way to turn it off too! 😉 Seriously, it’s an interesting read for science geeks. And one of several bits of science suggesting that a real “thinking cap” might not be …
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“Gigantic New SuperOrganism with ‘Social Intelligence’ is Devouring the Titanic”
Today the Titanic, tomorrow, the world! Muhuhahahahaha! 😉 (Interesting article though, if you’re into science-geekery.)
Political Conservatism and Personality
A few days ago, I was catching up on my reading when I discovered a paper on political conservatism and personality traits. I haven’t been able to wade through the paper myself yet, but according to the article where I discovered it, it reports “that overall, political conservatism was associated with things like death anxiety, …
“Creativity”
Scott Adams points out a possible link between creativity and boredom. I can see where he’s coming from, in that when you’re bored you’re more likely to think of something creative than when you’re too busy to think, but I’m pretty sure people can be creative even without boredom, at least in the area that …