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.
I recently saw this, and having seen several of these disclaimers in the last decade or so, thought it would make a good blog topic. When I first started communicating with BigCo, they had a policy that required an eleven-line legal disclaimer at the end of all e-mails. I know bits are cheap, but these …
There’s a growing movement to “do something” about the massive inequality of wealth in the US, but no one seems to know what to do, or even what can be done. The obscenely wealthy essentially control the politicians (if you don’t believe me, just look at the rhetoric of “tax cuts for the wealthy!” that …
Continue reading ‘“Stiglitz: wealth concentration will be America’s downfall”’ »
You know, there may be a lot of truth to this. But I think there’s more going on there than today’s science alone can explain. I do keep my eyes open around machinery (mechanical, electrical, or electronic), and I tend to understand it very well, by a combination of aptitude, interest, and training. But when …
Continue reading ‘“What Lucky People Do Differently than Unlucky People”’ »
You know, when I see things like this, I have to ask where these guys were when e-mail was the sole domain of us geeks. Does anyone else remember Operation Sundevil? Or the raid against Steve Jackson Games (makers of one of my favorite games in my late teens, Car Wars) around the same time? …
Continue reading ‘“Email protected by Fourth Amendment, says appeals court”’ »
This one‘s fun. I couldn’t figure it out until the guy turns the board sideways to make it obvious.
When you think about it, this makes sense, due to the way the brain works. I would never have thought to try it though.
Comedogenic. Obviously from the same root as comedian and comedy. Presuming you don’t already know what it means, you’d think that it has something to do with generating comedy. Well, I suppose it kind of does. Humans can be pretty cruel at times.
I’m sure some of you have been following the Wikileaks news recently… how the founder and spokesperson for the organization, Julian Assange, has been arrested in England, over an accusation in Switzerland. There are reports, which I haven’t been able to confirm, that the US is trying to criminalize Wikileaks retroactively and get him extradited, …
Continue reading ‘“Silencing Wikileaks is silencing the press”’ »
Have I ever mentioned that the late Richard Feynman is one of my heroes? This is a perfect example of why — he could have taken the easy way out and given a BS answer that would have satisfied the interviewer, but instead he tried to explain why he couldn’t explain it properly, while giving …
Continue reading ‘“Why Richard Feynman can’t tell you how magnets work”’ »
I’ve been against wide-spread spy cameras on privacy principles, ever since I heard about plans for them a few years ago. Now it seems that my concerns are unfounded… there’s no incentive to install them in any new cities, and the existing ones will probably scrap them soon, as they discover the same thing.